


In Your Heartbeat

by Luce_cm



Series: In Your Heartbeat Universe [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: ANYHOW, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Noooo, Romantic Soulmates, Sister-Sister Relationship, Torture, idk how to tag, not sexual tho, sry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2019-07-05 06:05:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 61,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15857739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luce_cm/pseuds/Luce_cm
Summary: You have been on the run from your name, your powers, and your past for years on end. A simple call from Natalia, your sister, will change everything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a mashup of a few Soulmate tropes. It’s gonna be kinda dark tho, not fluffy cause I can’t write that for shit. The name of your soulmate is spelled through your heartbeat in morse code. The rest I will tell you as it goes. Please give this mess a chance.

Ironic, that someone without a soulmate would earn a living by finding other people’s. But your initial line of work alongside your sister, Natalia, opened a window to an unexploited weakness: soulmates.

Want to make someone sing? Find the name matching their heartbeat.

Want to make easy money? Promise people they will leave forever, if they manage to escape this one particular person.

Of course, there’s a lovely side to your work as a huntress of other halves, but that is not as well paid.

‘Sides, the world isn’t as pretty. Everyone wants to live forever, half the scientific community has been searching for the enzyme activated when you find your soulmate, and try to avoid artificially it’s spread through the body, so you can find your destined other half and still look 22 at your 79th birthday.

And the ones that don’t want to live forever, those are hiding from shadows in dirty alleyways.

You see the man rest his back on the brick wall, taking a few calming breaths, thinking he has lost you.

“You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?” You tease, smiling as the man looks at you with widened fearful eyes.

“What do you want?” He snarls.

“World peace and to eat without getting fat. From you? Information.”

“I would’ve thought Black Widow doesn’t need some low-life’s knowledge.”

“I would’ve thought you could recognize the difference between my sister and me.” You smile. Playing with one of the dark red curls framing your face. You don’t even remember how many times you have changed your hair in the past month. But you are vaguely aware that Natalia sported something like it shortly after your paths deviated from one another.

When she left you to chase a _Ghost_.

“I don’t know nothin’.” The man states, lifting his chin.

“I know you don’t. What you do is what worries me,” You take out your phone, and read out loud, “Smuggling of nuclear prototypes, double-crossing a division of Stark Technologies…oh and so much more.”

“You can’t jail me without shining the light on your friend’s net too.”

“That’s why I only want the road you use, nothing more, nothing less.”

“What will you give me for it?”

“Yvette’s life,” You respond simply, narrowing your eyes, “I bet that little heart of yours is racing right now, huh?”

* * *

The man delivers on his part of the deal, and as you walk down Vienna’s streets you are interrupted by your phone, the one your sister gave you years ago in case of an emergency.

“I’m here.” You say simply.

“Solnyshka. I need you to come to Washington.” Natalia says quickly over the phone. You frown,

“Is everything alright?”

“Fury was killed. _He_ did it, and I have a trace. We are going after him, sister.”

“Natalia…” You start, trying to ignore the knot in your stomach when you think of your sister’s fixation on finding the Winter Soldier.

“I have to do this,” She insists. “I _have to_ , and you know it.”

“This personal vendetta of yours has gone too far Nat.”

A few seconds of silence on the other side, and you wonder if she hung up on you. But then you hear her again, teeth clenched as she spits out,

“He tried to kill you.”

“So did half our friends, Nat. I don’t see your point.”

“He…we have to do this. He is too dangerous.” She insists, and you sigh, running a hand through your hair,

“Natalia, what happened in Odessa…”

“He _shot_ you.”

You are tired of having this conversation over and over, each time news of Hydra’s Ghost reach your sister’s ears. After a failed mission where Hydra had gone directly against you and you had almost died after they sent their Asset against you and your sister, Natalia had turned darker, rougher. She was out for blood.

You understand, but you also wish she would be honest.

Because you remember the car being driven out of the road, you remember Natalia’s whispers of your name, the one no-one says anymore, before you two heard the orders barked in heavily accented Russian.

You had truly believed the Winter Soldier was a myth. But after that night, any doubt you had about the stories whispered about the man were erased from your mind.

And you remember disposing quickly of the agents with him, before he had you two cornered against the useless car. You remember Natalia trying to cover your body with her own.

You remember him telling her to move. You remember she didn’t. And you know he shot through her, and struck true quite near to your heart, almost killing you on the spot.

You remember Natalia’s bloodstained hands, broken pleas as she took you in her arms, unhinged warnings as the people nearby tried to help the bleeding girl and her sister.

You remember that the Winter Soldier had disappeared like he had never been there, the only proof of his existence two scars on yours and Nat’s bodies.

Maybe it is personal revenge, what has driven Natalia to the ends of the world and back in search of him. Maybe it is the need to know why Hydra had targeted you so specifically.

Maybe it is something you will never know.

But still, you sigh, and promise Natalia you will arrive in DC as early as you can. She thanks you and promises a vacation of just the two of you after this is all over.

* * *

You tie back the straight black hair falling over your shoulders, telling yourself to buy at least one wig before your constant changes in appearance make all your hair fall off.

According to the data you’ve gathered, Fury’s execution was quite public. Hydra is getting impatient. For what, you do not know, but you expect Captain America of all people knows something.

But as you meet the tired-looking man in a suburban house that doesn’t even belong to him, but to the former marine standing next to him, your hopes of going back overseas soon are crushed.

“I assume you know nothing.” You start, and Natalia grunts an affirmation.

“We don’t know much, Miss…” The Captain expects you to continue, but you raise your eyebrows.

“You expect my name, Captain?”

“Well, yes. Why would it be a secret?” He asks, and you deviate your eyes to the man they called Sam who is about to leave an orange juice carton on the counter.

“That is going to fall and stain your socks, mostly your right one.” You advise, but as you finish your sentence the event has already happened.

Both men raise confused and surprised eyes on your direction, and you shrug.

“I see the future,” You deadpan. “And I see we are all fucked.”

“Don’t listen to her. She only sees events in the near future.” Natalia calls out from the other room.

“I don’t need my powers to know we are way in over our heads, you grump.”


	2. Chapter 2

You can feel Natalia gritting her teeth as you confess your real age, the fact that you were born before the end of the second world war, but how you are one of the lucky ones that managed to stay alive by staying away from a non-existent person, in your case.

“No heartbeat?” Sam asks, and you narrow your eyes.

“No name, I do have a heartbeat.”

A few years ago, you would have despised the idea of someone other than your sister knowing that you were not Natasha Romanov’s adopted little sister, born twenty, maybe thirty years ago; but her biological half-sister, raised from crib to…to catastrophe with her. The only difference, she had a name branded with iron over her heart, but she had been branded with the scorching hot iron of the Red Room too many times to even care for it. You had been the one born without a half, but the one that didn’t have to survive losing herself.

You believe it was a fair deal with the universe, all things considered.

And now, now it doesn’t feel as heavy, the weight of your heart spelling no name, the sorrow of knowing no one was created for you. So you don’t mind telling the Captain and his friend.

You have seen what happens, and this secret will change nothing.

* * *

“Can you use your secrets on him?” Natalia whispers as Sitwell raises his voice at the Captain on the front seat. You shake your head,

“Soulmate’s been dead. For years now.”

“Dammit, what about what he…plans on doing?” She asks, and you open your mouth to request something of the close attachment to the man, but your sister is already handing you an engraved watch.

You close your eyes, focusing on the energy of the object, tracing the threads of what could be, and holding on to the strongest one of them all.

_Hand grips the shoulder tightly, glass shatters and cuts his head and face. But the pain cannot be lived long, the truck is already striking him down._

You take out your gun with a shout of “Incoming!”

The words are not done leaving your lips by the time a loud sound resonates on the roof of the car.

Natasha moves to cover Rogers, and you fire into the roof, but the soldier quickly falls off the car, and ends up ahead of you.

“I told you we were fucked!” You scream as you take cover on one of the stopped cars as the agents alongside the Ghost walk towards you and your sister.

She smirks your way and you resist the urge to roll your eyes. You close your fingers around the bracelet Nat gave you years ago, and focus on it.

“Incoming missile in around…two minutes. We have to get away from here,” You whisper, and Natalia nods in understanding as signals that you should go under the bridge. “You better time this right, or I’m breaking your legs when we’re done.”

You count down the seconds together, and run off to different parts of the bridge to jump down from it.

“Now, solnyshka!” Natalia screams, and you close your eyes as you jump down. Feeling your sister’s hand around your waist, stopping your fall and leaving you under the bridge.

“Can you predict him?” She asks as you run towards Steve and the bus, you shake your head.

“I need something.”

She closes her eyes, before taking a deep breath and releasing it a second after, “Go take cover down the corner. I’ll lead him to you.”

“Nat…”

“Trust me.”

You watch as Natalia faces the Winter Soldier with nothing more than two handguns, swallowing down your fear as you run away from them.

The redhead starts running towards the meeting spot a few seconds after you, and when she signals you to take cover near one of the parked cars as she readies her trick, you grab her forearm and look her over.

“You okay?”

She nods, and the smile on her face is feral. You would fear her, if it weren’t for the fact that you grew up together.

She jumps over the roof of the car, wrapping the cord around the Soldier’s neck. You run after her, double-sided knives ready on your hands, distracting the Ghost as your sister readies the device for his arm.

When the metal arm stops responding, you take your chance to crouch and take slide the glove from it. The Ghost motions to grab your hair as you get away, but the still malfunctioning arm and the Black Widow trying to subdue him put him in disadvantage.

You fit the loose fingerless glove on your hand, and focus on it.

_Tear the device of the arm. Work through the deficiency. Grab Black Widow. Force her over the shoulder and to the ground. Shoot._

You get out of cover, raising your gun and shooting at him, forcing him to use his metal arm as a shield. Your sister gets off him landing a kick near his flesh shoulder, staggering him, and you smile.

You will have the advantage if you manage to get on close quarters, considering you can predict his movements. You run towards him, kicking the rifle off his hands but ducking and taking a step back when you feel his intention to grab your leg.

You take another step back and he unsheathes a knife. You smile, readying your stance as you see him charging towards you.

“You brought a literal knife to a gunfight. I like you already. Shame you tried to kill me.”

The Ghost falters on his charge, and you share a quick glance with your sister, who was putting together a wire trap to throw at him as you stalled. You watch as Natalia’s face hardens, and she stands back up, trap forgotten on the ground.

But before she can strike him, you hear his voice,

“Y/N?”

Frantic grey-blue eyes are set on yours, but you can only shake your head. The Ghost takes another step towards you, you see Natalia cover her mouth with her hand, horrified expression on her face.

“That’s not my name.” You deny, jaw set and hands curled into fists at your sides.

“Y/N.” He repeats, almost to himself. You can’t stop hearing it in your head, over and over, in a thousand different ways. But always in his voice.

“Stop!” You yell back.

* * *

_You hear that voice, over and over, over and over, over and over and over and…_

_“Solnyshka!”_

_It keeps going, and you try to cover your ears but it keeps going over and over. It’s inside your head…_

_“Hey…” They say again, and someone touches your shoulder, but you shrink back. You don’t want them to touch you. You don’t want anyone close, they shouldn’t be._

_You just want the voice to stop, you want to stop seeing him die everytime you close your eyes, you just…you want to go home. You want to be able to say your name._

_You want him to stop repeating it._

_“Sister, breathe!”_

_You want them to stop. You want them to stop now._

_“What…What is going on with her!?” They scream as you whine in pain and fear, hiding your head under your arms._

_You want them to stop hurting him. You want them to…no, not the drugs again…_

_Not again._

_“Please, Y/N!”_

_Someone screams in agony and your whole body quakes. And maybe it was you who screamed, and maybe, you think, you are shaking because Natalia has her hands on you._

_“Please,” she sobs, and if it didn’t hurt so much, you would do something._

_You open your eyes, and you see your sister’s green ones staring back at you. Those you can see. Those are real._

If she can see me, why won’t she make them stop? Please, just….stop.

_“Sestra, look at me,” She begs, and you blink again, “It’s only inside your head, baby.”_

_You start shaking your head, because….because they have to save him, they have…they have to make it all stop._

_“No…” You croak, but they force your eyes back into their own._

_“You are here, solnyshka,” Natalia whispers, and the voice in your head seems to quiet alongside your heart, “He is too far away,”_

_“They are…killing him,” You say somehow, voice between a sob and a whine, “You have to…you have to save him, Natalia.”_

_You start shaking again, and it wasn’t her arms moving you, but the fear and pain going through your body like electricity. You feel her arms wrap around you, and you cannot find the strength to resist, to tell your body to move._

_Staining her neck with hot tears, you finally close your eyes as the pain and the voices stop._

_“No one can, sister.” Her hand strokes back and forth over your back. If she could only see what they did to his…_

_“He di-…I…I can’t…”_

_“Shh, everything will be alright. I promise.”_

* * *

You wince past the pain in your head, and try to warn…anyone, of the man incoming. But its too late when you can open your mouth without tasting blood.

Captain America runs towards the Soldier, shield ready to strike only to be stopped by his adversary’s metal forearm. You fall back to the ground, lifting your hand to your face only to discover blood coming out of your nose.

Blinking slowly, you try to focus on the fight before you, try to anticipate the Ghost’s movements and warn Steve, or fight him yourself. But you feel weakened, sluggish.

You watch as the Soldier grabs Steve by his neck with his left arm, lifting the other supersoldier and throwing him against some cars away from the battle.

Natalia comes running towards you, you see her with her terrified green eyes focused on you.

Big mistake.

You clench your hand around the gauntlet you stole from him, and you can see he has already focused on your sister.

_Black Widow at ten o'clock. Single shot to the shoulder._

She falls, clutching her shoulder and you watch her take cover behind a car. Then you realize you are still on the open.

Your eyes cross with the Ghost for the second time in a lifetime. You don’t need your powers to know what is about to come

_A distraction. Terminate._

He lifts the rifle your way, but Steve’s shield interrupts what would have been a fatal shot.

You somehow manage to get to Natasha, crouching next to her and taking her hand in yours.

“You’ll be okay.” You promise, but she keeps her eyes on yours, sad and afraid.

“Y/N.” She states, as if something has been broken, as if she has seen some unknown storm approaching you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations: From Russian “Solnyska” is an endearment term that means “Sunshine”.


	3. Chapter 3

“Why are you saying that name, Natalia!?”

She can only look at you, big eyes staring back at you in a mix of anguish and terror.

“Natalia, why did he say it!?” You scream, but next thing you knew, they’re putting a rifle to the back of your head and forcing you on your knees.

“Nat…” You whisper, tears filling your eyes. Your sister won’t even look at you, “That’s not my name…is it?”

You stuck to the shadows after the battle in the bridge, keeping the Ghost’s gauntlet and trying to keep the connection alive for the next encounter of your sister or Steve with him, that was bound to happen any time soon.

You tried helping the Captain through the comms, predicting when the Asset would strike, when he would raise his gun at his former best friend and when he would use the metal arm to gain an advantage. But relaying information is not as easy as going through the motions when you are taking your part in the fight. The Captain fell, but so did Hydra.

Days spent by the bedside of a man you did not know, feeling tendrils of what could be and trying to strengthen the thread that tied his soul to survival end perseverance, even though you knew he did not need your powers to do that. But Steve had become your sister’s confidant, your sister’s friend, he had been at her side when you hadn’t, he had risked his life for her over and over. You owe him, even if you are never planning on letting him know that.

When the Captain wakes up, Sam tells you and your sister about it with a smile, and you three go inside to greet the man born again.

“Well, that’s a good nap you took there, sailor.” Natalia teases, to which the blond answeres with a sardonic twist of his broken lip. It is apparently enough for your sister to relax, and reach out to take his hand, squeezing once before letting go, “I’m gonna go tell Fury and the rest you are alive. Welcome back, Steve.”

He watches her go, and when Sam tells him he is going to go to his house, planning on getting a very much earned shower and sleep on a real bed; you are left alone with the man if the shield, only now the person looking back at you is a man that had seen his world crumble at his feet.

“I know you have no reason to trust me and much less confide me with anything, but…with Natasha as your sister, why have you hid all this time?”

“Trying to find another cause to protect, Captain?”

“Trying to find another friend.” He states simply, eyes holding your own. You take a deep breath, releasing it with practiced calm.

“Natasha was the best thing Hydra got away with making. She was the best student, the best assassin and the best fighter,” You start, not even trying to mask the pride you feel for your big sister at being so strong, so resilient. You shrug your shoulders and continue, “And surprise surprise, she had a sister.”

“They tried to get you.” He says, but you shake your head.

“They had already tried. They…when they raided our home in Seversk I-I managed to escape, hid until I was sure they wouldn’t come for me. Worst mistake of my life. I was nineteen when they took me from my foster’s family house.

"They had the same plans for me as they did for my sister, but I wasn’t sent to the same program. The Red Room was not the only new project they had. I was tested with an experimental serum, similar to yours but looking to exploit a hidden sequence of the DNA that allows humans to manipulate elements…transcending this plane. Like time, or probability.

You smile sadly, closing your eyes for a bit and seeing the nurse open the door to the Captain’s room with a smile before you open them and hear the knock on the door.

There’s a small moment of chat between the blonde and the helpful woman, and you take the time to focus on Steve’s energy, trying to find if his intentions lie on using your information against you. But the thread is almost non-existent, the one that shows him using your own secrets against you, so, when the nurse leaves, you let your eyes find Steve’s baby blue ones again.

"I escaped after the serum worked, I had the advantage. They let me, figured it was going to cost more to chase me than to let me go. But then…then Nat started excelling after her first missions were proven successful, she became their most prized possession and…my name started meaning I was the next best thing, I guess. And they wanted me. They wanted another one of the Romanova family.

You breathe a laugh that sounds too weak to your own ears. Keeping your eyes firmly on the machine showing the Captain’s heartrate, you continue.

"Natalia fought with claws and teeth to get their gaze from me, but never managed it. I spent thirty years, maybe, running from my identity, from my powers, from…everything. I got so used to preventing their tracking methods of me, that I ended up becoming one of the best trackers in our line of work.

"That’s how you got Hydra to send the Winter Soldier after you?” Steve asks, voice low and soothing even though he is the one in the hospital bed.

“Yeah, putting me and my sister together against the whole of Hydra was not the best case scenario. They thought sending their Ghost to kill me would get her back to their side. But it didn’t, she is my sister, we…even though he hadn’t been side to side for years, we were still of the same blood, nothing could get between that. So, we got used to it, and started working together, I tracked her victims, she took ‘em down. Perfect duo.”

“That doesn’t explain why you don’t say your real name now.”

You swallow past the knot in your throat, and show him a tight-lipped smile, “I don’t know it. Hydra erased the files on me, Natasha chooses to forget it.”

You see him frown, sympathetic blue eyes searching your own, “That’s…”

“Efficient,” You interrupt, standing up and putting up the mask you have perfected for over sixty years, “Names are a burden, especially in a line of work like mine, Captain.”

You ran from Washington as soon as the Captain was out of danger, with Natalia at your back.

When Natalia outed the files, you made quick work of un-encrypting the files on the Ghost, reaching for every friend and every contact you had around the world to see the information presented to you without Hydra’s obstacles in the way.

It was all waiting for you in your office in Moscow. You hadn’t been there in months by now. You couldn’t.

Not yet, not with so many questions in your head.

You are sitting on the old couch in one of our houses in Moldova, pen on your hand as you tap relentlessly on a white notepad, when a question leaves your lips before you can think of whether or not you should ask it.

“Do you remember your soulmate’s name, Nat?”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t you wanna know? I can get you hooked up and read in a blink of an eye.” You offer, leaving the notepad on the coffee table and standing up, walking towards your sister.

She looks up with narrowed eyes, and stops your movement with a gentle hand on your forearm.

“What’s this about, Solnyska?”

“You remember how we used to fold paper cranes?” You smile, stalling the conversation you are too afraid to take head-on, but still taking a seat next to the redhead as she keeps those all-knowing eyes on yours.

“Yeah. An old-wives tale about meeting your soulmate if you managed to get to the thousandth.” She concedes, letting go of your arm and signaling for you to lay on her. You do, head popped on your sister’s shoulder as she runs a hand through your hair. “Is this about what happened in Washington?”

You shrug, “I think I… saw a-a weird sort of future.”

“Will you tell me what happened?” She asks soothingly, every bit the big sister, but you lift your head and look her in the eyes instead.

“Will you?” You accuse, eyebrows raised at her.

“What?”

“That name, Natalia. Who does he think I am? What does that name mean?”

She shakes her head, “I don’t know, Solnyshka.”

Your response is interrupted by the annoying buzzing sound coming from your phone.

“You won’t believe the kind of clients I’m getting.” The voice on the other side of the phone brags, and you roll your eyes as you approach the notepad and ready yourself to scribble down the data Elena, one of your contacts on Russia needs you to get on a soulmate.

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t need you to find anybody, I did that all by myself. But I need you to give some information to your sister.”

“What is it?”

“The man that broke havoc in Washington a couple of months ago? He tracked me down. Looking for someone.”

“The Asset is needing your help?” You ask, ignoring how Natalia stands up from the couch and stalks over to you, trying to ask questions.

“He goes by Bucky now, I believe.” The girl on the other side muses, “Anyhow, I’m gonna forward you an audio clip of the call he made. See if your team can get anything from it. Or maybe just send it to Captain Rogers, he may want to hear it.”

You can see Natalia already leaning over the table, scouting the secure channels you have with your contacts in search of the audio she heard Elena say she was going to send.

Your heart beats painfully inside your chest. For years you have tried to ignore the voice inside your head that tells you Natasha’s hunt for the Winter Soldier is something more thana personal vendetta to avenge you, something more than simply evening the ground for him almost taking you away from her.

You know your sister is hiding something from you, something big and something that is going to force a distance between you two that not even Hydra, with over thirty years of keeping you apart, managed to do.

You whisper your goodbye to Elena just as you see Natalia click play on the audio.

The Ghost’s voice fills the room, “You have a reputation for finding people.”

“Who do you want me to find, specifically?” Elena asked, and you can hear the typing on the background.

“Y/N, Y/N Romanova.” The soldier answers mechanically, though you can hear a tint of fear in his voice.

Romanova. Pain and fear clutch your heart with an iron grip. You are about to speak when Elena sighs, and provides her answer.

“Unfortunately, she is dead.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Sargeant Barnes. Miss Romanova died years ago.”

You hear ruffling on the other side of the line, and a few beats go by before the soldier speaks again,

“No, no that…t-that cannot be right. We…people don’t, we don’t die, we…we wait for each other.”

“We cannot die of old age, true. But I’m afraid she was killed.”

“N-No…”

Elena goes on. You would comment on the way she goes so mechanically to tell a man someone he clearly cared for was dead, if it weren’t for the fact that you had done worse, way worse.

“According to my file, on 1963, she was injected with an experimental poison. Her body couldn’t handle it. I’m sorry for your loss, Sargeant.”

A choked sound leaves the man’s lips, too close to a sob,

“That c-cannot be…Oh, God…”

“Sargeant Barnes?”

“No, I…I remember…”

The call ends abruptly, a sequence of numbers following it in what seems to be the date and time of the call.

Heart heavy, you turn to your sister. You want her to reassure you, like the big sister she has always been, that it will all be alright. You want her to wrap her arms around you and speak with that raspy voice of hers about how it is all a mistake, a mishap. You want her to tell you that though that girl they talked about matches your life piece for piece except for the date of her death, it is not you the Ghost is after. You want her to tell you she hasn’t lied, not about something like this.

But when your eyes meet hers, and you see, for the first time in so long, tears brimming in Black Widow’s eyes, you lose all hope.

“What is my name, Natalia?”


	4. Chapter 4

“He knew my _name_ , Nat.” You whisper, your heart still skipping a beat when you admit it out loud. It has been almost three hours since Elena’s intel, but you still hear his voice in your head, repeating your name. As if asking you to remember, to find the thread not to the future but to the past this time.

The only problem is, you have never had a name, not since…you shake your head, as if dispersing the cobwebs from your thoughts. Since _when?_

Your sister sits up, hand reaching down to grab yours. It has been hours of Natasha dodging your questions, your head hurting from trying to reach through the memories, and you are so _tired_.

You sit next to her, eyes searching hers.

“I know.”

“You…know.” You repeat, breath hitching.

“I-I told you about my last years in the Red Room, when you were about to get off the system but got adopted. I was almost twenty, thought that maybe when you turned eighteen I could…go find you.”

“Yes, but you didn’t. You couldn’t get out.”

She shakes her head slightly, red hair framing her face as she leans forward, elbows on her knees, back bent with the weight of so many years holding on to so much pain.

“I couldn’t. The last few years, they were the most brutal. They wanted to make sure we were ready for the outside world. They assigned the Winter Soldier as our mentor, and although they wouldn’t admit it, our Handler.

“There was…there was one night, I couldn’t sleep, I kept wandering the halls, checking for danger or…a way out. I remember I stopped near the room set for _him_. I could hear something like drops falling, metal softly touching wood, over and over. For weeks all I could hear was this…this tapping sound, this _fucking pattern_.” She takes a few irregular breaths, as if the pain of revealing this one secret has cost her something incredibly important, something you cannot even know about.

But you can only look at her with barely concealed horror in your eyes.

“Morse code,” You spit out, and your sister nods, “My name. The real one.”

Natalia nods, “Y/N Romanova.”

Your apartment suddenly feels too small, too cramped. You get up, pacing back and forth, a few feet away from your sister, who watches you attentively.

You try reaching for your heart, the tendrils tied to it. You try to find a thread to the past, something that can show you what all they have told you, all you have _seen_ , truly means.

But you can’t. You can’t because that was not how the _made_ you, and you let a laugh leave your lips, not caring how manic it sounds, even to your own ears.

“Poor bastard got brainwashed for seventy years and ended up being one of the only people whose soulmate doesn’t have their name,” You huff out, trying to ignore the stinging in your eyes, the pain in your chest.

Maybe you would have had a soulmate, if Hydra had let him die, or if he had been saved, somehow. But now those monsters had cursed two people to wander around incomplete, one searching for something they could never have, and the other knowing they were not made to even want to have it.

“Solnyshka…” Natalia starts, concern in her voice but the pain in her eyes hidden once again behind the walls the Red Room built around her heart.

“What?”

“Are you…okay?”

“I’m wonderful. My sister lied to me for years, and the reason I had to forget my own name wasn’t my abilities, but one fucking prisoner of war that had the idea stuck in his head that I was supposed to mean something to him.

You run your hands through your now platinum-blonde hair, reminded again of how you don’t remember how it looked like at the beginning. You know nothing of who you once were, of…of who you really are, and it’s because of a fucking _name._

You walk towards your computer, quickly typing your own name in the file list. It pop’s up, but again, as Elena told the Ghost, it shows you died because of the serum in 1963, instead of surviving it.

You raise your gaze to your sister’s green eyes.

"Why does Hydra believe I didn’t survive the serum, Natalia?”

“Because Y/N Romanova didn’t. Sofia Narpav did. I changed the files before they brought you in.” She answers, prompting you to walk towards her, finger pointing her way as angry tears pool in your eyes,

“It’s your fault! Hydra could’ve known I didn’t have a name, they could’ve known and they could’ve _let me go_!” You scream, not caring for masks, not caring for pretenses when you are standing before the woman that lied to you for years, “You intervened and you ruined me! You took everything from me!”

“I intervened and saved your life.” She hisses back, and you could see the hardness in her posture, the anger in the tightly balled fists at her sides. And you want her to be angry, you want her to be hurt and angry and confused, just like you are. You want her to feel the aching emptiness from knowing your entire life is a lie.

“I wasn’t important if I didn’t have his name, Natalia, Hydra would’ve-…”  You start yelling back, but Natalia beats you to it.

“But you do! I grew up hearing your heartbeat, Y/N! It spells _James Barnes_.” She hisses, face twisted in a snarl of anger and the animal desire to hurt back when they are hurting you.

And you know what it is like to be on the other end of that stare. You _remember_.

* * *

_You step into the dimly lit room, eyeing the various machines and wires with caution. There was supposed to be a simple exchange of information on Natalia Romanova’s whereabouts, about Hydra’s plans on your sister._

_But it seems it won’t be as easy as you expected._

_A blonde woman around her forties steps ahead, and motions for you to sit in one of the medical tables._

_You do, toying with the handgun strapped on your waist. She notices, and motions for someone to come out of the shadows on the corner of the room._

_“Natalia…” You whisper, attempting to stand up, but the blonde woman has already tied the stripes around your left wrist, “What are you doing? Hey!”_

_The woman ignores you, and forces you down on the bed, tying up the rest of your extremities to the table._

_Suddenly you feel like a little girl again, looking at her big sister to protect her, but all you see are the tired and blood-shot eyes of a Black Widow looking back at you._

_“Natalia, please!”_

_“I’m doing this for you. I’ll find you when it is safe. I promise.”_

_A whisper of a kiss left on your forehead, and you feel the sting of a needle in your arm._

_The edges of your vision start blurring, and even though you fight to move, to keep your body alert and take more air into your lungs, your body is no longer your own._

_It feels like getting the serum all over again, only this time you aren’t burning from the inside out, they are freezing you, turning your body into someone else’s._

_The last thing you see is Natalia’s eyes closed tight, as if she cannot bear to see what she has done._

_The last thing you hear is another female voice, “Wait until her heart stops, then inject the epinephrine and I’ll start the compressions.”_

* * *

Again, your head feels split by a sudden headache, accompanied by the way the whole apartment seems to twirl around you. You can only fall to the couch behind you, face hidden in your hands as you feel your chest heaving, but no air coming into your lungs.

“You killed me.”

You can hear her footsteps as she approaches, and feel her hand on your shoulder gently, trying to soothe you.

“It was the only way to change your heartbeat. I didn’t want you chasing after a dead man, a…a weapon.”

That, for a reason you do not want to think about now, makes you stand up, slapping her hand away from you and turning blood-shot eyes to her, letting her watch as she destroys you, letting her watch as the tears she is the cause of run down your face, letting her watch the face of the woman that, looking at herself in the mirror, wouldn’t recognize the image looking back.

“You built a whole fucking web of lies around me, Black Widow, and hoped I wouldn’t notice,” You snarl, disgust marring your face. “You killed me!

You hate that a part of you breaks at the way she flinches at your accusation. The woman that faced nations, the one survivor of the Red Room, the Black Widow…your sister. You hate yourself for hurting her, but that is quickly tempered by the anger you feel surging through your veins, the pain, and the helplessness.

"You made me forget my own name! You made me forget _him_!”

“You never knew him to begin with!”

“Because you wouldn’t give me the chance!” You say, your sentence ending in a sob that forces you to cover your mouth with your hand as another one quickly follows. You feel the pull to double over, the pain pushing your instinctual brain to make yourself smaller, to escape this.

But you can’t.

And you don’t want to. You have escaped enough.

“I was right, _solnyshka_ ,” She finally sighs, the fight leaving her body, “Because when they told him his mission was to kill you, he did. He shot right through me and he didn’t even hesitate to kill his own _soulmate_.”

You shake your head, the words barely reaching your ears.

“Everything, Natalia. You lied about everything.”

“I did it to protect you. I wanted to keep you safe from the demons in your head.”

“The demons you put in there!”

She shakes her head, eyes still staring, in all their sadness and decades-old pain, at yours, “The demons being bound to him forced you to carry.”

* * *

You take the notebook from your backpack and begin writing.

_Natalia, I know it has been too long…_

You sigh and take another sheet of paper. That is bullshit. Of course, it has been too long, it had become too long the moment hell broke loose in Sokovia and you weren’t there to have your sister’s back.

You shake your head at yourself and begin again.

_These last 16 months have been hard, but I needed to know who I was, what the world knew about me and…_

You grit your teeth, not being able after months of thinking about the fact that your…the name on your heart, that they are…missing, one way or another. And probably doesn’t want to be found.

You take a deep breath and start typing again.

_I miss you, Nat. I hope I am brave enough to go home soon._

That is enough, for now. You fold the absurdly large piece of paper for such a short message, and save it in the folder with the other 487 letters you have written for her in your time away from one another.

You take another sheet, and write another message. When you are done, you save it with the few others, and get up from the wall.

You leave the deserted Hydra facility, ready to find a Ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the end of the first part :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the start of the second out of three parts of the series.   
> Summary: It has been over a year from being on the run, but for the first time, you are not running away. Trying to find clues on your past, your name and what it means to Hydra and their Ghost, you will stumble upon darker truths than you expected.

You cannot believe how little you knew about the system dictating yours and everyone else’s lives until you forced yourself to dig into every bit of information, search on every crevice and contact every person that could know something.

You read on a long-forgotten experimentation facility on southern Italy about how stopping a person’s heart and restarting it within a certain time period will allow the heartbeat to restart, forcing a nameless brand on the resurrected person’s heart. You found out about the project to do so in the sixties, you found out about Hydra’s plan to try it on the Black Widows.

You remember how your sister tried it on you.

You had to battle yourself for months, fighting against the desire to cling to your anger, your resentment towards her for what she did; but then, when you had spent too many months alone and running and tired, your search for the Winter Soldier’s files.

And you understood why Natalia wanted to protect you. You understood why when she was presented with the choice between a possibility of you being happy and the certainty of you being safe, she chose your protection, your safety.

The notes on the surviving subjects of the new project to take soulmates away from people say that memories, even on people that have spent a lifetime alongside their other half, are quickly forgotten once the heart is restarted.

No intel on whether or not those memories come back, but be it because of your powers or the horrible, hilarious twist of fate the universe has set on you; they are.

You remember Natalia teaching you to read your heartbeat, sneaking around with a bunch of dots written on a piece of paper and coming back with a name written on it. A name that sounded too English for two girls raised knowing nothing more than the constricting borders of the USSR. A name that sparked something in your chest, a bit of hope and a bit of the good kind of fear everytime you thought of it, traced the letters, the beats, in your head.

You remember realizing the myths about how when one person on the side of the bond is under incredible pain or joy, the other one will be forced to watch, for bad or for worse in your case. You remember realizing that it was not a myth when they started trying the sensory deprivation chamber on the Ghost, and when a seventeen-year-old had to stand by and watch a man descend into insanity, only to be brought back from the edge, again and again and again.

You remember the way when one of those episodes happened, when the thin red knot tying you together tightened and you could feel that impotence, that helplessness and that pain for that part of you that you didn’t recognize yet; there was only one word spoken on either side of the bond. Your name, the real one.

The one thing, your treacherous heart that is still too much the heart of a girl folding paper cranes reminds you, that they couldn’t take away. The one thing, that name, that stuck for seventy years on the mind of a man that forgot his own.

But now you know it’s only that: a name.

Just like his.

Just like the name that took everything from you. The name that forced months upon months of you trying to figure out who you really are, what being you means. Months of peeling mask upon mask off your face, never knowing if you would ever reach Y/N or if she had truly died decades ago, as Elena told the soldier.

The _name_ that has meant nothing but pain, even after this long. The name you never wanted. The name that cursed you from the start.

__

You are scouting through a Croatian market when you hear the distinct sound that years of training and of watching over your shoulder had thought you to recognize: a gun’s safety going off.

Trying to keep your calm, you pay for the small golden trinket you got to add to your collection of souvenirs, and take the first route into the center of the market.

But the woman that readied her gun follows you, and not too discreetly.

You close your eyes and follow the threads around your energy. It has gotten a lot easier in the last months, controlling your powers, focusing on yourself, than it was in over forty years of training. You like to believe you are becoming more of yourself and less of a mask, which makes finding yourself and your connection to time easier.

The strongest thread suggests there’s more approaching, and they are going to flank you and drive you away from people if you try to veer towards your apartment in the city.

So, you decide to go for the thickest part of the street market, bustling with people at this time right before the sun starts to set.

Like you had predicted, two more men join the woman of the gun when you walk past the thickest part of the street market, but when you dive into the midst of people, reaching up to take off the brunette and blue wig, leaving behind the unnatural platinum blonde you dyed before parting ways with your sister, with the growing roots of your natural color, or what is left of it after years of changes and products.

With the security that they will hesitate, were they to find you, you take a nearly deserted street that leads to the apartment, checking once again over your shoulder to see if they are close by before you break into a run.

You hear the barked orders, the closely following footsteps as you reach the apartment, breaking in and throwing your things into a bag and taking the predicted escape route towards the train station.

You close your eyes, focusing on your powers as much as you can while still running through the labyrinthic streets of Pazin.

_Footsteps on the perpendicular street, about to meet at the corner. Try to avoid them, a body falls from a nearby height, crushing you to the ground. The needle in your arm is the last thing you feel._

You shake your head, taking out your gun and readying it to shoot at the incoming man from the corner, all the while keeping close attention to the woman running across the low roofs of the buildings in the coastal part of the city.

The man appears, electric baton ready in hand, but two quick shots in his leg make him drop down, the woman falling to the ground from the roof, but your powers helping you avoid her.

She points the gun at you, dead eyes set on yours, and you do the same thing.

“You want me alive,” You state, praying she doesn’t hear the tremor in your voice. “I won’t let you take me.”

“I can make you,” She smirks, pretending to advance, and managing to set you even more on edge as you try to keep an eye on both her and the man on the floor, to keep your mind on the situation at hand and the threads referring to each possible future.

You take a step back, “You can’t. What do you want me for?”

“You are needed, girl. The miracles failed, is time to go back to good ol’ weapons.” She sing-songs, making the hairs at the back of your neck stand up. The soft way she rolls some consonants in her tongue should tell you of her lack of practice with English but, then again, you have seen Barton pretend to only speak ASL when captured so…you cannot trust your human distinctions, not in a world like yours.

You feel one of the threads grow stronger, brighter.

_A man approaches from behind. Hand around your neck. Too easily, he beats you._

You have to force your fingers to release the white-knuckled grip they have on your backpack. Where you keep the files, the letters.

Where you keep the picture.

You drop it to the ground between your legs, and taking out the other handgun from the holster by your hip, you point it behind you blindly.

Staring directly at the leader, you snarl,

“Tell your dog to back off.”

She merely laughs, in a raspy, mocking laugh that sounds like nails on a chalkboard to you. She lowers her gun, but you don’t.

“You have gotten good, girl.” She teases, and in what seems like a puff of smoke, she is standing right in front of you.

You shoot. One, two times.

But the bullets go through her like she is made of mist.

“What…?”

She smirks your way, taking out a picture from your backpack and pretending to study it. You can only stare at her with wide eyes.

“Nice picture, dolly,” She lifts her eyes to yours, and only then you notice the way some sort of dark mist is swimming inside of them, like the red you saw in the new girl in the Avengers group. She presses her palm to your chest, over your heart, and leaves the picture pressed against your jacket. “Better give it back to its owner, pretty thing. It’s never too late, is it?”

In another swirl of almost black mist, she is back where she was, a few feet away from you. Smirk still in place, you keep your back straight and your eyes on her as she holsters the weapon and signals for her men to retire. They do, the one at your back helping the wounded one up.

She turns around, leaving you dumbfounded, but only after taking a few steps away from you, she turns around and looks at you.

“Consider this a warning, little Romanova. Next time we call, you better answer.”

* * *

You have been running for what feels like hours, the voice inside your head you haven’t heard in years telling you to keep going, to never stop because they will find you again.

Your legs give out under you, too weak to hold you up any longer. You had lived without being hunted since Natasha joined Shield and Hydra had quietened. It had been years since you felt the threat not of death, but of capture.

One thing is to be in the other end of an enemy’s gun barrel, and know for certain your end is to come. It is terrifying, of course, but it also comes with a certain sense of peace.

To be taken…you have been haunted since you were too young to remember what it was like not to be. Strangers took your sister, forced you to run away, but then they got you too, killing the small family that made the mistake of wanting you. They injected their concoctions into your body and hoped for the best, and you couldn’t do anything but scream in pain because you were at their mercy.

Because they had beaten you. Because they had _captured_ you.

And since you escaped with the serum running through your veins, you have known you will die before risking being taken again.

* * *

It’s when you are on the train, safely directed towards…you don’t even remember where, your belongings inside your bag and your heart rate returning to normal; that you take out the picture.

This is one thing you cannot afford to lose. It’s a reminder. A reminder of why you are risking your life for Intel, a reminder of the danger of a name, a reminder of why the Ghost will remain to be an enemy to you, no matter the circumstances, no matter the name he chooses for himself.

You run gentle fingers over the photograph. It’s old, maybe as old as the serum in your veins, although the smile on the girl’s picture is dimmer than those of the girls in Natalia’s pictures, so it is probably taken much after the night your sister stopped your heart, and took your memories.

But the smile, it is still yours. Your hair is not exactly the color your roots are taking now, judging by the shade in the sepia picture, but you recognize the shape of your nose, the shine in your eye.

But you turn the picture around, the picture found in a dark room on a forgotten facility, and you are reminded why you thread with care, why you are fighting to make your name your own again, and if not that, at least know who the person behind that name truly is.

Deep and uneven traces of the pen, as if the words had been pulled from a dying man’s throat, taint the back of the photograph.

_Y/N. Y/N. Don’t forget that. Count the beats, don’t forget that. Y/N._


	6. Chapter 6

It had been three weeks of silence. You were on edge, looking over your shoulder, jumping at shadows. It was like being back on the run from Hydra those first few years.

Retreating back to one of your offices in Austria, you flinched when you saw the number of requests of work you had had over three months. People looking for a lost loved one after a catastrophe, people asking to know the soulmate of a certain enemy, or a possible recruit.

You ignored them, pacing inside the small loft as you thought back to what happened in Croatia.

How did that woman just…transport? Was she like the girl from Sokovia? Or…was she like you? What did they want from you, why ‘warn’ you, why want you now of all times?

What are you going to do if they find you again?

You force yourself to stop think, to stop worrying about it. They are probably some misfits that heard of your powers, nothing else. Probably.

You wake up to a loud and continuous beeping sound coming from…from all over your apartment. You snatch your backpack and put your gun back into the holster by your hip before finally looking up.

It’s the middle of the night, no light except the distant city lights. And your computer. The monitor lights up with an odd reddish tint.

A single star in black takes over the previously empty screen. You can only stare at it in horror once you realize what it means.

Bold lettering appears under it.

_Time to stop hiding. I suggest you run._

An image flies past your eyes. _A whistling noise, an incoming missile. The loft engulfed in flames, try to get out, a pillar crushes your leg. You suffocate by the smoke before the flames get to you_.

You start running to the escape stairway outside your window, heart racing and hand tightly fisted around your bag.

You manage to get a few meters down when the impact shakes the ground beneath you, the old metal of the emergency stairs groaning before the pressure of your body as you hop over the railing and jump to the alleyway.

You run, the flames taking over what once was your home, and you run despite the chaos that erupts in the streets, the approaching emergency services cars and the helicopters flying over the city skyline as headers of a terrorist attack reach ears of the media.

You continue to run, you run for days. You run until you find yourself in New York, battle-weary and tired, so, so tired.

When Stark goes to meet you on the ground level, you only shrug.

“I bet you didn’t hear of me yet.”

* * *

You take a long shower and put on fresh clothes, sighing in pleasure when you feel the soft bed of what Stark called your provisory room dip under your weight.

You don’t need your powers to know your sister is coming down the hall to your room, the loud and quite incoherent string of curses in Russian announcing her presence.

Just as you are getting up from the comfortable bed, your door is opened violently. Natalia stands by it for a couple of seconds, assessing you and looking for any visible injuries before launching herself towards you, arms wrapped tightly around your frame and now long red hair tickling your nose.

You hadn’t realized the tension you were carrying until you felt your sister’s arms around you, her weird scent, a mix of lipstick and gunpowder reaching your nose. You hug her tightly in return, a stuttering breath leaving your body.

“What happened, Solnyshka?”

“I…I don’t know. I was not prepared, hell I didn’t want to be. I wanted to just…get away from this whole world and then they found me, I don’t know why, I need to check and see if they are hired guns or…”

Natalia interrupts your anxious rant by stepping away from you and placing gentle but firm hands on your shoulders,

“Hey, hey, breathe. We will figure it out. We will make them pay.” She promises, but you start shaking your head before she is even done. She pushes on, “Y/N, listen to me. You will find them before they find you again, and even if they do, they will have to go through me to get to you.”

“Natalia, you don’t get it. These people…one of them vanished. Like magician trick vanished.” You explain, eyes searching Natalia’s green ones, trying to make her understand.

She smirks, “I’ve seen weirder things happen. I was kidnapped by a robot, went on a flying city, fought superhumans…”

Only she can laugh about something like that. But you can’t help but laugh a little with her too, shaking your head at her simple smile, and reach to hug her tightly one more time before letting go and straightening your back.

“Right, the witch and the speeder. Read about them. Tracked them for a little while. Was fun,” You say, turning around and getting the fat envelope with over four hundred letters addressed to your sister. Handling it to her, you say, “I want what happened in these last months to be behind us. I was done making discoveries, anyway. Found a little coastal city in Croatia, was about to settle down and get a dog, but these fuckers screwed me over. Point is, I am not running anymore, and what made us part ways is something I forgave you for.”

She keeps a small smile in her face for a few seconds before she speaks, and when she does, you both ignore the way her voice catches, “You were always better at being human than I was.”

You laugh, shaking your head, “I was always better at screwing up. Sometimes I do the screw-up, sometimes the universe does it for me. Either way, I am…not here to stay, ‘cause this is not for me, but…I’m not going anywhere,” You frown at your own words, “Does that make any sense?”

Holding the letters tightly in one hand, Natalia reaches up with the other and tugs at a strand of your still wet hair.

“Back to the original?” She teases, and you roll your eyes.

She pretends to be horrified at the little number of clothes you had at your disposition when on the run, and promises to take you shopping tomorrow and put you out of your misery. You pretend to huff in exasperation and roll your eyes at your big sister.

But it’s good to be back at her side. Too many years you spent apart because of what Hydra did to the both of you, you weren’t about to waste anymore.

Stark calls you up around half an hour after you and your sister reunite, asking you to go to the main floor and meet with him and the rest.

You greet Sam with a smile, he smiles back and tells you it’s good to have you back. The girl with the brown hair and the tight smile presents herself as Wanda, and mutters something about being glad not to be the only weirdo here.

When you turn your eyes to Stark in question, he shrugs and backs away, warning you about not telling people you can see the future if you don’t want them talking about it.

Then there’s the android. The floating, wall-phasing, deep red colored android. That one took you a little bit to get over the shock of. Still, the man is kind, if a bit fumbling in his human interactions.

“Where’s Steve?” You ask with a frown as you sit in the main room, your legs thrown over your sisters as she reads; Sam’s curses background noise as he tries to bluff Vision in poker, and Wanda’s shy laughs brightening the room once in a while.

As if you have summoned him, the blonde supersoldier comes through the door, smile in place and pace faltering when he sees you on the room. But you don’t notice all of that.

You notice the man with the metal arm. You notice the red star on his shoulder. You notice _James Barnes_ , the man behind the name.

“You,” You snarl, standing up and quickly crossing the room. On the back of your mind, you recognize Natalia whispering your name in an attempt to make you stop, but you don’t. You can’t. “You took everything from me. You and your fucking name!”

The man only looked back at you with wide grey eyes, and it seemed the whole room had stopped to watch the exchange.

You continued, your blood boiling under your skin as you tightened your hands into fists. It is because of him you lost your home, because of him you cannot stay still in any place, even after Hydra has fallen.

It is because of him, his damned name, and that star in his god-damned arm.

“I lost myself because of you!” You scream, hating how tears cloud your eyes and emotion clogs at your throat. You try to bring back the anger, you try to bring back the hate, but you don’t think there was much of any of it to begin with, “I lost everything because you wouldn’t fucking forget me! I had to hide my identity, I had to leave my home so many times, I had to pretend to be dead!

You take a piece of paper from your pocket, torn from being folded closed and open too many times. You walk towards him, trying not to notice the way a man twice your size flinches when you raise your arm to slap the picture against his chest.

The words tease you when you look down at your hand over his heart and read his scrawled words. _  
_

_Y/N. Y/N. Don’t forget that. Count the beats, don’t forget that. Y/N._

You look up at him, tears falling down your cheeks, hand still over his heart, “Why couldn’t you _let me go!?_ Why did you have to drag me down with you? Why did you have to kill me too?”

You turn around before he can see more of your pain, more of what is left, raw and beating and hurting, after you peeled off al the masks, after you got rid of all the lies. You ignore everyone’s stunned faces, and you look down at the floor as you walk to your room.

Only to be stopped, once again, by your name. Your name in _his_ voice.

“ _Y/N_.” He whispers, in a mix of awe and agony that you know too well, that you remember too well. You stop, not turning around when you answer.

“You better forget that name, soldier. That name has doomed us both for long enough.”


	7. Chapter 7

You close the door, resting your back against it and covering your face with your hands.

Shame, anger and hurt fight for dominance inside of you, leaving you tired, weary and, at the end numb. Tears keep streaming down your face, your body still fights for more oxygen than it is already getting.

With so many years of memories of your soulbond with the Ghost to be gotten back in the last months, you can already feel the splitting headache and the dizzy disorientation that comes before a memory takes over your mind.

But you won’t let it. Not this time. You are tired, tired and angry and hollow; and you do not want reasons to believe the man with the metal arm deserves anything more than what you did.

Oh, but you know he does.

And you hate yourself a lot more for admitting it inside your head.

A soft knock on your door shakes you out of your reverie, and you stand up, walking away from the door, but still not answering. Not ready to.

“I’m kicking the door down if you don’t open.” Natasha warns from the other side, forcing a smile on your weary lips. You walk towards it and unlock it, lowering your gaze to the floor so she doesn’t get to see the tears still running down your cheeks.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“I don’t care. This is the kind of things that happens when you bottle things up, when you run instead of facing shit, Solnyshka!” She argues swiftly, eyes hard when she looks at you.

“You said it yourself, Nat. His hand raised his gun at me, at his soulmate, and it didn’t tremble. I will never forget that.” You argue, although the words feel like sand in your tongue, although you feel like you are back into putting mask over mask on your face, although you feel like this is nothing more than an excuse.

And of course, your sister notices, and huffs an exasperated breath as she raises her arms in the air.

“Stop running from shit, already!”

“I am right here, and I am here to stay. But I am angry, why can’t you understand that!? I…” You yell back, but the words die in your throat, the anger goes out within your chest like a stubborn flame that was grazed by a burst of strong wind. You sigh, letting your head hang down as you sit on your bed.

You feel Natalia kneeling in front of you, hands on your knees.

“You are hiding. You are hiding behind his name and yours to avoid seeing what happened and what that means to you.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Natalia?”

A sad smile turns her lips upwards, and not for the first time you wonder if you will ever know the true extent of her pain, of you will ever discover those secrets of hurt and hollowness that she keeps so deep inside.

Your sister whispers, “It means I know about the way you would feel his pain when we were younger, Solnyshka. The way the bond would take over, the way you would cry for a man you did not know. I know about the night you tried getting him out. The night Hydra knew of the last Romanova’s whereabouts.”

__

_“Y/N, you don’t know what you are getting yourself into,” Your foster mother growls, but you ignore her as you walk past her, not caring how her shoulder hits yours, “Y/N!”_

_“Don’t ask me to stop! Don’t ask me to turn my back and stay here because I won’t, Mother!” You scream back, turning around to face her and facing her big blue eyes. You feel the almost ancient pain of missing the figure of your sister at your side, her comforting presence, her soothing voice._

_You miss her, and you miss someone you didn’t even meet too. And if you have only one slight chance at saving one of them, you will take it._

_“You are my daughter, you do as I say,” She argues, straightening her back. Her voice takes a more tender tone, however, when she adds, “I know what he means to you, little bird. But you are too young to walk into that hell. The people in charge of his life are very dangerous people, you do not want to cross them.”_

_“I know. Those people took my sister. And I have a lead on what could be finding them, saving him and making them_ pay _.”_

_You watch as your foster father approaches her, placing a hand on her shoulder, showing you that he supports your mother’s decisions. Showing you that you will have to go through a Soviet Commander to get out of that house._

_Then so be it._

_You start turning around again, but his voice stops you,_

_“Y/N.” The coldness in his voice scares you, more because he never used it on you than because of the implication of the stoic man’s controlled anger._

_“I’ve been hearing that zapping sound for days, Father. Days hearing screams and…and my name.” You hiss, although your voice breaks halfway into the sentence, showing your strength, your professional mask, is a façade. Showing you are still a scared girl trying to defeat a big bad wolf, no matter how much you try to pretend otherwise. Still, you take a deep breath and say, with absolute certainty, “You won’t stop me.”_

_A couple of beats go by before anyone speaks._

_“Wear a hood,” Your father advices, “Don’t let them see your face.”_

_You smile, closing your eyes and nodding, but still not turning to face him._

_“I will.”_

_“And come home.”_

__

And you did, with Hydra at your heels and your soulmate and your sister more far away than ever.

The gunshots, the screams and the horrible, horrible stench of blood still reach your senses, past the decades, past the forgotten bits, past the way you tried so many times to tamper down the hurt, the guilt for being the reason Hydra killed two good people that only wanted to give a scared eighteen-year-old a home to call her own.

You turn to your sister, eyes blazing and despite the pain in your head, the dizziness and the anger at not being able to control when you are sucked in by memories of a past you do not want; you ask,

“You of all people decide to give me shit for hating the…the Ghost that killed me!? You left me alone, Natalia, to chase after him in your search for blood! You cannot tell me now that you forgive him.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

“What?”

She gets up slowly, sitting next to you on the bed and laying her arm on your shoulder closest to her, hand reaching up and playing with a strand of platinum blonde hair with Y/HC roots.

“I learned many things in these last few months too, sister. I had to watch the man with the face of the Ghost that killed my sister be welcome into the team I called a family. And I had to piece together an image I had of him, of an identity, because the man that Steve brought in was none of those things. Because that man didn’t _remember_.

She takes a deep breath and continues, her tone of voice telling you of how you lost her to the memories of a world you do not want to know of again,

“I told you he trained me, I told you how I did not care for the glorified bodyguard they put at our door until I heard your name, until I heard him tapping that damned morse code. I was terrified when I heard that, I felt as if I lost you all over again, because when I was in there and you were out there, at least I could daydream about you being happy, being _safe_.

“And he took that away from you.” You whisper, but she is quick to shake her head.

“Not him. He didn’t choose the name on his heart, Y/N. He just chose to love whoever was behind that name, to cling to them in hope that…I don’t know of what.”

“Then why kill me, why take his name from _my_ heart if you…if you saw him as a human?” You hate the way your voice falters, the way that question sounds more like a reprimand for taking away your bond than curiosity for your sister’s reasoning.

She does not seem to notice, and if she does, she does not comment on it, continuing her story.

“Because Hydra didn’t. Because they would go after the girl with _James Barnes_ branded in her soul. I knew that. I had to do what I did, even if I regretted it.

Natalia clenches her jaw, swallowing hard before continuing. You feel your breath catch, your body tense at the prospect of what hurts her so much to tell, even after so many years.

“When I snuck back into the facility in Belarus, where I was kept…there were bullet marks on the walls, chaos and sirens and screams,” Tears shine in Black Widow’s eyes, although her gaze is set on nothingness, looking back at the past they should have all learned to leave behind. “He…he broke programming. He felt when you died and…something snapped inside of him. James Barnes won over the Ghost for what would be the first and last time in almost seventy years; and he tried to escape, to get to _you_ somehow, but of course, they brought him back under. I never trained with him again, I don’t even know what they did to him once they took him away.

Her eyes finally turn to you again, tracing over your features as if trying to fit the confused girl before her with the one in her memories.

“But I knew what _I_ had done. One of my first kills was my own sister, the little girl I promised to protect since I was two years old and mama told me there was a bean in her belly. I killed you because I kept telling myself it was the only choice, it was the best thing for both of you.

“And then you saw his pain.” You whisper, not knowing if you speak of your sister’s change of mind after she returned to Belarus or…or yours when your heart settles back into your chest and Elena’s call with the soldier from so many months ago repeats itself in your head.

“I killed a man’s soulmate, Solnyshka. I took the one thing he was holding on to, I killed whatever was left of his humanity because I was _scared_.”

“Nat…” Is all that can leave your lips. Your sister is looking at you like she is looking for absolution in you, and it breaks your heart. You take her hand and squeeze as hard as you can, “You made the right choice.”

But she shakes her head again, eyes still searching frantically on yours, “Don’t hate him for what I did, Solnyshka.”

You wrap your arms around her, resting your chin on her shoulder as you feel her hide her face on your neck.

You take a deep breath, and release the truth, now that she is not there to look into your eyes and see the light shine of tears in them,

“I don’t hate him. I…I don’t.” You whisper, almost to yourself.

__

You spent hours talking about everything and nothing with your sister, your heart light at knowing nothing had changed between you despite the months apart, the lies and the changes.

Like you used to do in those first years on the run, you decide to share the queen bed, so you head for the bathroom and change into a simple blouse and shorts you borrowed from Nat, and you two lay down in bed in silence, looking up into the ceiling.

“Y/N?”

“Yeah, Nat?”

“I missed you.”

You smile in the darkness, and you feel the rustling movements and the way the mattress dips underneath you; signaling she has turned her back to you and is ready to sleep.

“I missed you too.” You whisper back, and the soft rumbling noise of the tower lets you slip into unconsciousness slowly but surely.

_Why couldn’t you let me go!? Why did you have to drag me down with you? Why did you have to kill me too?_

_Why did you have to kill me too?_

_Why did you have to kill me too?_

You sit up on the bed, sheets pooling at your waist as you gasp for air, coming out from the nightmare, from that space of mixed voices, of blood staining your hands and of yelled curses in your own voice.

Once your heartbeat settles back into the rhythm you know like the back of your hand, long months spent trying to find a trace of a name in a heart that forgot it; you look over to your sister.

Natalia still sleeps, with her back turned to you, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

But you also feel the restlessness, the itching feeling of a red thread pulling at you. You slide out of bed carefully, taking your backpack from near the closet of the room and walking through the hallway to the main living room of the tower.

Just as you take out your phone to find the information you want, a deep voice stops you in your tracks.

“Leaving again?”

You look up to find yourself face to face with the Captain, this time his baby blue eyes hard and distrusting as they search yours, instead of the open and kind look you were on the other end of last time you met.

“Trying to lock me in, Captain?”

“Trying to keep you from doing more damage.” He snaps, and only then you realize he is too in his sleep clothes, or what you assume he wears to sleep: a thin sleeveless shirt and loose grey pants.

You narrow your eyes and ask, “It wasn’t my nightmare, was it?”

“So it’s not a myth.” He muses, but does not give you a direct answer. Or tries to. You will tell Nat to teach this man how to keep a secret, one of these days.

“Nope,” You answer, putting your phone back in the bag with little care, but keeping the backpack strap in your hand tightly. “And thank God, because I had the hope I wasn’t narcissistic enough to dream of my own voice, so…will you go?”

Steve looks at you for what feels like an eternity, assessing you like another enemy. You stand your ground and look back at him with the same intensity.

Finally, he sighs and motions for you to go ahead.

“Y/N?” He calls as you walk away. Your real name still sounds like gravel in your ears, after years of not hearing it outside of hidden and forgotten nightmares. You stop, but don’t turn around. “It’s good to have you back.”

“Thank you, Steve.”

__

You knock on the door and count the beats on your head as you wait for an answer. The door unlocks and you see Bucky’s retreating back as he runs a hand through messy locks of brown hair,

“I’m fine, Steve.” Comes the tired mumble, prompting you to cross the doorway and clear your throat.

“Yeah…this isn’t Steve.”

He turns around so fast you wonder how he didn’t get whiplash. His wide gray eyes are looking at you like someone seeing a ghost and…you hid a smile at the irony of the situation.

“Listen, I…” You start, but you notice something held in the soldier’s flesh hand. The _picture_. He notices you looking and he hides the folded paper back into his fist.

Words escape you, and you look up at him as you take another step closer. He won’t look at you now, evading your eyes and choosing to look over your shoulder.

You don’t blame him. The last time you saw him you cursed and yelled at him so…him not kicking you out really is an improvement.

“I’m sorry.” He says suddenly, his words shaking you to your core. You frown.

“W-What…?”

“You were right, I…I killed you too,” He mumbles, turning away from you and sitting on a chair near his bed. You watch as the soldier rests his elbows on his knees, shoulders tight with tension but at the same time hunched over with the weight of a guilt you feel so awful for putting there. He continues, hair hiding his face from your view, “I should’ve…I should’ve known you…your name wasn’t mine to keep.”

You shrug and try to ignore the part of you that wants to go to him, to comfort him, to make at least one night better, if that is all you can do.

Apparently, the smart part of you loses, because you take a few steps closer, and say, “It isn’t mine either. Hasn’t been for a long time.”

He looks up at you then, but you do not know what to do with the emotions you see lurking behind his eyes, so you reach into your back and pull out a pile of files, folders and transcripts.

“What is this?”

“This is…all the information known Hydra facilities have on the Winter Soldier,” You state, forcing your body to take a deep breath as you extend the files for him to take. He hesitates, still looking to find your eyes, which you deny him, but finally takes the papers from your hands. “I burnt the other copies, and there’s just a backup on this flashdrive left.” You hand it to him to, but he doesn’t take it, already looking over one of the folders.

“Why…Why did you do this?” He asks, eyes rising to meet yours to quickly go back to the words on the paper. You swallow before taking a seat on the bed, right in front of the chair he is sitting in, legs folded underneath you.

You take a deep breath and start, “I…don’t do apologies. But…I shouldn’t have said those things, earlier. It was not your fault, none of what happened. I was just…angry.

 _And I was forced to realize that the one person I was supposed to love, the one person I was supposed to stand besides, was tortured for over seventy years and I could do nothing but fucking_ watch.

But you don’t say that, you just shrug again and motion at the files in his hands with your chin,

“As for the intel, I went looking for my own history in Hydra’s files. I didn’t want them knowing my story when I didn’t know it myself. Figured I owed you the same.”

He keeps his eyes on the files, and you can feel the excitement in his demeanor, because even though the words in those papers tell nothing but a story of pain and suffering, it is _his_ story, a story he probably thought lost for too long.

After a few minutes Bucky looks back up at you, finding your eyes, and a small smile lights up his face, making your heart beat painfully inside your chest, its hopeful beats forcing you to daydream of the what if’s, of the life that would have been if the world hadn’t been so cruel as to rob itself of that smile.

“Thank you.” He whispers, and you shrug again.

“I know what it is not to remember your own past. I…If I can help you get back yours…” You let the phrase hanging in the air between you, and you watch as metal fingers trace over his own name on one of the dossiers.

“Do you remember? Your past, I mean.”

“Yeah. Most of what I forgot had to do with you, considering…everything.”

“You remember me?” He asks, turning fully to watch your face when you answer, eyes alight with something you refuse to call hope.

“Yes,” You answer, wondering if you are about to cross a line with your next words, but you try to muster up the courage and ask anyways: “Do you…remember me?”

Years of training teach you to notice the twitch in his stubble-covered jaw, the forcibly rehearsed breath, the way his metal hand clenches and unclenches a few times.

“Some things.”

You want so desperately to bring back the cautious but peaceful man of a few minutes ago, you stumble with your words.

“Do you know what we are, to…to one another?” You ask carefully. He looks at you, studies you in a way so strikingly and painfully alike a scared animal being offered a piece of food after years of neglect that you cannot help but stretch a hand between you, asking for the files. “Maybe we…maybe we can piece some memories together, if you want.”

__

It has been a few hours of shared memories, fragments. You furiously take notes on a notebook as Bucky goes through the files, pointing out what he remembers from a place, or what really happened in a certain event narrated in a document.

And as you go on together, you are pleasantly surprised to discover new memories, memories of a time before Hydra being brought forward in both of your minds.

You are teaching him how to fold a paper crane, explaining each step with a slight smile on your face.

“We grew up, Natalia and I, hearing stories about how you’d meet your soulmate after folding a thousand of these. Every time it was too cold or…or dangerous to go outside, we would go over this design over and over.” You muse, hiding a laugh at the terrible job he is doing of creating the small bird.

“Back then we had these stories too,” He comments easily, and you cannot hide the surprise in your face when the soldier starts talking easily with you about his childhood in Brooklyn, a light smile on his lips. “Like, you take a daisy and you pick a petal and you say, ‘meet me’ and then another one and go ‘meet me not’. The one you said last was supposed to mean whether you were supposed to meet ‘em or not.”

Your smile becomes so wide your cheeks hurt, and you turn your eyes to the window in his room as you watch the first rays of sunshine litter the room with white, soft light.

“Bet you and Steve weren’t the type to pick daisies.” You tease, but the soldier just shrugs.

“I…I don’t know.”

“You will.” You promise easily, eyes back on the New York sky shown through his window.

“What should I call you?” He asks suddenly, prompting you to lift an eyebrow his way, “I can tell you don’t like hearing your real name.”

You narrow your eyes at him, but nod slowly.

“You are right. You can call me what you like, Bucky.” You answer, refusing too, to use his name, the one your heart used to spell. They mean too much pain, they mean too many things of a past you do not want to remember, wither of you.

“Okay, _lyubimaya_.” He agrees, the cheeky smile on his lips, although small, making your stupid, stupid heart skip a beat.

But because you cannot let him have this one, you ask, “You _do_ know Russian is my native tongue, right?”

He joins you in looking through the window, and nods, without turning to you.

After a few beats of silence, the question that has been eating you alive since you hear his call to Elena, trying to find the girl that went by Y/N, and his pain after he heard she was dead; finally makes it through your lips.

“Why did you, though? Hold on to my name?”

You don’t take your gaze away from the obstructed sunrise you can see through the window, but you can see from the corner of your eye how he turns to look at your face before he runs a hand through his hair, and answers in a voice that is almost a whisper,

“It was the only thing I remembered from…before. And I knew even then what soulmates were. I-It meant I had something of mine, something that they couldn’t take away,” He says, gaze travelling from you to the files on the far end of his bed, the ones that speak of the procedures to bring back the Winter Soldier after time in cryo, of the mechanics behind the electroshock machine. He clears his throat, and continues, “Even after your…your heart stopped, I wanted to keep it, I-I didn’t want to forget, not you.”

You watch him stand up and walk to the bed again, opening another file and raking his eyes over it.

“And you thought I died. Well, that isn’t depressing at all.” You mumble, eyes rising to the ceiling.

“No, no, it was…it still meant the same,” He rushes to explain, a small twitch in his body telling you how he planned to get up and go to you, but decided against it. He continues though, voice keen, trying to convince you, “Even if I failed to protect you, even if I let the Soldat win, even if you were g-gone, they couldn’t take you from me, and…that helped,” He lifts up his right shoulder, letting it fall with a mumble of, “Still does.”

You smile his way, and nod in understanding. You lean your head on your hand, and doze off as you watch him going through one of the files on the Howling Commandoes with a small, sad smile on his face.

__

“Nat, where’s your sister?” Sam asks over his morning coffee, and the redhead, shrugs.

“In Barnes room, if I have to guess.”

The former marine chokes on his drink, and Steve sighs on the other side of the kitchen, clearly too tired and too stressed to try to disentangle Sam’s mind from the gutter it went into.

“Natasha…” He warns good-heartedly, to which she answers with a roll of her eyes,

“Steven…” She replies in the same tone.


	8. Chapter 8

You wake up to an annoying poking feeling on your cheek. You open one eye to see Natalia smirking your way, and you close both again, tightly.

“No.” You growl, trying to turn around in the bed only to notice you are still on the chair, in Bucky’s room.

_Shit._

“Yes,” Your sister replies, and you can _hear_ the shit-eating grin on her voice. She pokes your cheek with her finger again, and then moves to your chin. “C’mon, I wanna freak out Steve.”

“What?” You have barely opened your eyes now, and are trying to smother down your hair uselessly. Your sister slaps your hands away and musses your hair a bit more, making it stand up in every direction imaginable. “Natalia, what are you doing?”

“Relax.” She shushes, reaching to pinch your cheeks slightly, forcing a blush on them.

“Natalia!” You scream, getting away from her. “I can’t believe you!”

“I can’t believe _you_ , sneaking out to go to an old man’s room in the middle of the night,” She chastises, and tsk’s her tongue. “Indecent, Solnyshka, really, really indecent.”

“Shut up, really, really shut up,” You parrot back with a groan, standing up and walking out of the room. You hide a knowing smile when you feel Natalia’s arm reaching for you and stretching over your shoulders, her silent request for physical affection. After years of living with her, you know her tells, and she knows you are aware; but you have the sneaking suspicion that she will never admit to being even a bit human if she can avoid it. So, you reach and hug her tightly, before leaving just your arm around her waist and your tired head resting on her shoulder as you walk slowly to the elevator that will take you to the kitchen. 

As she presses the elevator button, you stifle a yawn and ask, “What’s got you so happy this morning anyways?”

“My sister is back. I finally told her…some of my secrets. Things are looking brighter.”

“You have an android living with you. And I’m being hunted by a woman that teleports like mist.” You deadpan, walking into the kitchen and ignoring Natalia’s playful tug of your hair.

“You are such a delight in the mornings.” She plants a kiss on your forehead and promises to catch up after she is done training.

She leaves a faint smile on your lips, feeling like you’ve got her back for the first time since Odessa. You do not know how much of that new lightness in Nat is due to the secrets outed between you, her confronting her feelings over what she did all those years ago to you and Bucky, or simply that she wasn’t the one to wake up because of nightmares for one night.

Still, whatever it is, you pray it doesn’t go away anytime soon.

“Your sister is happy.” A deeply accented voice quips next to you, and you hide your surprise at her sudden appearance.

You smile and nod, “Annoyingly so.”

“It was a good morning. There has been worse, but not better. Since I arrived, at least.” She whispers, moving her hand and prompting a cup of coffee to float towards her.

You take another sip of your drink, not daring to face the world of floating things this early with no warm drink soothing you.

“So, Wanda…”

“So, Y/N…”

“What has you up so early?” You try, cringing internally at your attempt at a conversation. The girl shrugs, eyes on her cup as she stirs the coffee gently.

“Steve was thinking too loud.”

You ask what she means, and she explains in few words how she can reach into people’s heads, as you already knew, but also how she can’t quite control her powers yet, and the energies of other people’s thoughts, especially when they are particularly strong, breach her barrier and permeate her mind.

“Why was he thinking louder than usual?” You ask, trying not to dwell too much on how those are words you never thought you would say. To a person. Out loud.

“His hope was louder today. His friend was talking to him about the time before Hydra, about the men they fought with.”

You cannot avoid the gentle smile that curves your lips upwards, and the girl notices, turning to you with inquiring eyes,

“You have a strong bond. You and Steve’s friend.” She states, more than questions, but you still nod.

“Bucky, yeah. Soulmates tend to do that.” You mutter back, taking a sip of your drink.

“I mean your minds. You share many memories even though you lived different lives.” The Sokovian explains, but all you can do is shrug in response as you rise from the stool and leave the cup in the sink.

“Some may say too many,” You whisper, before turning back around and offering the girl a smile, “So, Wanda, what do you say we show off our weirdness a little?”

__

You still feel a smile pulling at your lips even after almost an hour of training with the Sokovian girl. She was so innocently thrilled by how you would predict and dodge each and every one of the objects she would throw your way, even with your eyes closed.

You stopped training with a promise of training together again soon when Natalia called you to the main office in the tower.

You now sit in the couch and turned on your computer, quickly running the searches you had planned to do since you escaped the explosion in your apartment. You try looking over the surveillance cameras of the street market where the woman and the two men ambushed you, but even though you run their faces through your data files several times, nothing comes up.

“Anything?” Natasha asks from the other side of the couch, and you can only shake your head.

“Nothing. Nothing on her powers, her story. Hell, her face does not pull through.”

“Tony is working on getting her scanned through a more powerful software, don’t stress about that.”

“Who was she working for, any clues on that?” Steve asks as he doodles something on a notebook. You shake your head,

“I think she is a loner. She called the shots,” You say, to then explain, “She wanted me alive, and probably unharmed, that much I know. She knew I was going to fight back and she wanted to take me by surprise. When that failed, I think, she decided to give her cryptic message and back off.”

“What do you remember, of what she told you?” Sam asks, quipping in from the kitchen as he brings in a mix of what looks like sweet iced tea. When your search for the woman that turned into mist became a group conversation, you do not know.

“She spewed something about miracles. Then…” Your eyes swiftly look over in the direction of the brunet supersoldier, sitting by himself quite away from the rest of you, a manila folder in his hands and his eyes set on the information in it; before you bring your gaze back to the people in front of you, “then she acted too specific about shit I kept in my backpack. Told me I better answer next time she calls and let me go.”

“Just like that?” Sam asks, and before you can answer, Bucky’s voice interrupts you,

“She shot a rocket at you.”

“That she warned me about.” You retort easily, smiling in the most annoying way you can when the brunet looks your way, ready to defend his argument.

But, you are interrupted when a small chirp from your computer tells you the face-matching software has found something.

You explain the new information out loud, even though Natalia is basically taking the laptop from your hands to hers and Sam is reaching over to read over your shoulder.

“The men with her, they are hired guns, underworld kind. Involved in some ugly stuff, from what I can see.”

“So she _is_ alone.” Steve muses, leaving the sketchbook face-down on the floor as he walks over to you.

“I don’t think so. She knows too much, she has been tracking me for a long time, considering the…the data she knew I had with me at the time of the attack. She has to have some sort of support.”

“Even if she were, bullets go right through her, Cap,” Sam argues, clicking play on one of the videos from the streets of Croatia. “We can’t underestimate her.”

“We won’t. But we can’t just let her pull this kind of stunt.” Steve retorts, frowning deeply as he watches the moment the woman transports in front of you, and the way your shots hit the gravel a few feet away instead of the misty-looking woman smiling predatorily at you.

“Give me a few weeks. Right now she is probably hiding especially from me, but once she believes I turned my back on her, I’m gonna track her down.” You promise.

“What about her soulmate?” Your sister asks, “I know we don’t have a name for us to track her down with, but she has someone’s. That’s got to do.”

You feel a creeping cold take over you, as you remember for how many years you reduced people to nothing more than names, hunted them down either based on the ones in their birth certificate, the ones branded over their heart, or, with the really unfortunate ones, both. You have felt first hand the pain of losing everything because to the wrong group of people you would be nothing more than a name, and you are not sure, after months of trying to find yourself and rebuild your life around that horrible mistake of letting a name become an identity, if you are willing to do the same again.

But you have a reputation, and you did even before you started toying around with people’s heartbeats. You are one of the best trackers out there. Sister of the Black Widow and trained in cyber espionage, you can find anyone anywhere, and if their trace won’t tell you, a few well-placed words on the right ear will.

“I will find her. I don’t need her heartbeat to do it. I just need to have her focused on keeping her eyes on me. I need visibility.” You state, closing the computer. When you catch your sister’s worried expression, you add, “Enough to last a few weeks, to lure her out. I will go back into radio silence once she shows herself.”

“And how are you planning on taking her down?”

You shrug, “I’ll get there when I get there.”

Nat lets out an exaggerated sigh, leaning her head back against the couch.

“Oh, I can _feel_ myself getting older with the kind of shit you are about to pull.”

__

And weeks pass by. And there is no trace of the girl of mist, although the team is waiting for a while longer before pulling the visibility card on you.

Either way, you are stuck, and you are itching to get moving, to get this problem over with and finally…

_Finally what?_

The question has haunted you for almost as long as you had been in the tower.

Finally go back to running away from your past, from your sister and…everyone else? Finally back to living a lie? Finally back to reducing people to names, hurting others like you were?

_Finally back to what?_

So for now, you avoid the question, you focus on training with Wanda, getting the girl to trust again; you focus on spending as much time as possible with your sister, trying to keep the easy smile on her face and the shadows away from her gaze; you focus on getting back your past, despite the pain.

You focus on long nights spent talking with Bucky, sharing memories and thoughts, getting to know yourselves and each other in the process. You focus on the tentative smile he used to throw your way, and how as the days go by it becomes a little surer, a little more affectionate and less cautious.

You focus on that, on all those things, those little moments, that have nothing to do with what will happen _after_. Or maybe they have everything to do with it, but you are too much of a coward to admit it.


	9. Chapter 9

You watch as Natasha uses her smaller body to destabilize Bucky, bringing him to the mat with a grunt. Sam lets out a laugh and Steve pretends to hide a smile for the sake of his best friend.

It is a slow day in the compound, and a pretty good one. Bucky hasn’t had any severe nightmares in over two nights and has started joining Sam and Steve on their weekly visits to the veterans’ center, which left Steve a lot lighter and happier than usual; Wanda is finally opening up to you and your sister; and Natalia is slowly letting go of the Black Widow persona and embracing being human, letting loud laughs echo through the compound, joining you for sad movies and not bothering in hiding the tears in her eyes.

It has been a good run, and today is one of those days where the team feels more like a family than ever.

Your sister doesn’t even try to hide the proud smile on her face as she stalks past the man in the floor and towards you. She extends a hand, bowing sardonically.

“Will you do me the honors?”

You slap her hand away with a roll of your eyes, but either way, you stand up and walk to the training mat in the center of the room. She circles you, slowly, measuring you and waiting for the right time to strike.

You can feel the intent when the thread around her becomes stronger, so you block her high kick with your forearm and quickly land a couple of hits near her ribs. Losing her breath, your sister backs away, but you are already going for the last hit.

Too predictable, though, and she dodges your hit, elbowing your back as she reaches behind you and lowering her legs to the floor to swipe them under yours, bringing you down.

She looks down at you, a little out of breath, “I trained you. You cannot beat me.”

You narrow your eyes in her direction, ready to tell her she had just proven that theory wrong by sending her former teacher to the ground in a few hits, but you bite your tongue.

“You are right. _I_ can’t. But let’s go one more. Make it fun.”

A predatory smile pulls at Black Widow’s lips, and she nods, helping you up. Once you are back in your feet, you lift a finger, signaling for her to wait, and you walk towards the supersoldiers in one of the benches. “Bucky?”

“Yeah, doll?”

“Team up with me?” You ask, smiling slightly at the petname you haven’t gotten used to yet. It is better than his oddly accented Russian, though, and you love the way a little bit of the Brooklyn man from the forties shines through that simple word.

He shares one look over your shoulder to your sister, who you assume shrugs, based on her sigh, “Sure.”

Taking off the simple bracelet your sister got you so long ago, you offer it to him. He takes it with a frown of confusion, but before he can ask what it means, you wordlessly stretch your hand between you two, asking for his left hand.

In these last few weeks, Bucky has grown more accustomed to physical contact, but you still remember the man that flinched when a petite woman of half his size rose her hand too quickly and too near, so you always try to make sure he decides when to establish contact between you two.

“Trust me?” You whisper. He doesn’t answer.

His eyes search yours for a few instants, and apparently not finding the hint of malice you _know_ he still expects to see lurking in the eyes of the people around him; he finally gives you his metal hand, pacing it softly over your open palm.

You release a breath you didn’t know you were holding. You reach to take off the fingerless glove, hiding a smile at how different this time from the last time you took the gauntlet off his metal arm is, and slide it over your own hand.

“Focus on me, not the rest,” You advise. “Try to put yourself in my place. You know her movements, and you can see them. Try to think of what you would do next if you were in my place.”

“Are you sure this will work?”

Natalia answers for you, “Her powers depend on her senses. If she is blind, so is her perception of her future. It is a weak spot, easily exploited.”

“So I came up with this exercise,” You explain, reaching for a piece of black cloth and motioning for Bucky to tie it around your head, covering your eyes. “My powers let me predict your next move, and you are thinking of moving to help me, not hurt me, so it is easier to move with it.”

“We tried it a few times, after…” Natalia cuts herself short, clearing her throat, “after Odessa, while she was getting better. I tried training her in taking advantage of blind spots.”

“Did it work?” Wanda asks from a distant spot in the room.

“Kind of. It also worked on getting her injured ass walking into walls and pulling stitches.”

Having a connection to Bucky’s energy and searching for the threads that pulled on him was not that different from the bond you already had with your sister. But, that did not mean training was going to be the same.

You did not account that his experience was marred by two very distinct things: a metal arm and being six feet or pure muscle.

So, when you gave into the pull of Bucky’s near future, anticipating how he’d deflect Black Widow’s hit, you ended up putting your bicep up and receiving a painful kick from your sister’s shin.

You groaned and backed off as you felt the unexpected pain and your left arm cramping.

“Ah, _chyort voz’mi_!” You yell, and feel Natalia pulling the blindfold off your eyes.

“Fuck! Doll, I’m sorry.” Bucky stammered, flesh hand cupping your elbow as you felt his metal thumb gently trace the place where you got hit.

“It’s okay, Buck. I’ve gotten worse. I just forgot I don’t have a metal arm for a second there.” You say, looking up at him. He keeps his eyes on the non-existent wound, brow furrowed adorably.

“Still…” He mumbles, and you cannot help the love-struck smile on your lips.

“She’s not made of glass, jerk.” Steve mutters from the end of the room, and you look past Bucky to see him crossing his arms with a soft smile on his face.

Bucky ignores him, reaching down to take your hand and you have no time to wonder how easy touch seems to come to him today before he is placing your sister’s bracelet on your open palm.

You reach down to take off his glove, but he stops you,

“Looks better on you anyways,” He shrugs, to then tug a little on your hand, in the direction of the door. “Whaddya say we get goin’ on that movie marathon of yours, doll?” He asks, bright gray-blue eyes still on yours, making your heart skip a bit.

“Yeah.” You breathe. You are walking together to the door of the gym when you notice the silence in the room. You know no one will say a thing teasing him, considering the morning when Sam tried to crack a joke about Bucky keeping your picture on him at all times and got an elbow to the throat by Black Widow herself.

Putting your walk to a stop to turn to your sister, you ask Natalia if she would like to join you. She merely shakes her head in silence, and you turn back around, walking out.

“Natasha, your sister would like for you to smirk more _quietly_.” Wanda quips from her place, prompting a loud laugh from the redhead.

__

It has been two months since your apartment in Austria was targeted, two months of relative calm and of a feeling of belonging you haven’t had since they took your sister away from you that first time.

In the back of your mind you know you should be worried, or running already, considering your past. But you aren’t.

And when the window you didn’t close because you promised you wouldn’t spend the night in Bucky’s room, again, lets the sun in and trace your face up to your eyes until you are forced to wake up, you smile past the painful light in your eyes.

You had no idea you could miss something you never had, but apparently you did, because the calm spreading through your body feels like a missing piece finally snapping into place.

Moving down a little in the bed so that Bucky’s body, as he lays on his side, keeps the light from reaching your face; you blink the sleep from your eyes and take your time to enjoy the first time you have woken up before the supersoldier.

You are both over the covers in his bed because you had told yourself -and him- over ten times that you would go back to your room by morning.

It had become quite a routine for you to get ready for bed, hug Nat goodnight and then walk calmly to his room. At first, the excuse of wanting to figure out your memories together had pushed you past your apprehension, the voice in your head telling you names were dangerous in a world like yours, especially considering your background.

You remember the second evening you spent at the compound, memories of an entire night spent talking with him and feeling the tight knot in your chest loosen, your heart settling still fresh on your mind; you were battling whether or not it would be imposing to go talk to him again, find an excuse to hear his grave voice talking about what he remembered, to see the small smile, almost disobedient to his past and his instincts as it set on his lips.

But you couldn’t get past your hesitation, so you were standing in your room, eyes on your backpack, still full of unsent letters to the Ghost, your hand clenched around the flash drive with the digital backup that he refused to take the night before. A low knock on your door had brought you out of your reverie, and you opened the door to your room to see no other than Bucky standing on the other side of it, dressed in a pair of loose pants and a long-sleeved shirt.

“S-Sorry to bother you, I…I have some questions? About what you remember?” He asked, and looking at him then, long hair framing his face and eyes looking everywhere but at you, you couldn’t understand how you ever thought him to be the Ghost that almost killed you.

“Of course!” You chirped, praying you hadn’t sounded as eager as you felt, but at the way his shoulders relaxed, and a softness you hadn’t noticed it was lacking spread through his face, your worries vanished. You took your phone from your nightstand and turned back around, motioning for him to lead the way. “I can’t rest until you have properly folded a paper crane, either.”

From that moment on, almost every night for the two months or so that followed was spent with him. Either investigating the dossiers until one or the both of you fell asleep, slouched on the chair, the bed, or even the floor; talking until the early hours of the morning, letting your voices turn to whispers; sometimes joined by Steve or Nat and sharing stories about one another.

Of course, there were still bad days. Days where the nightmares, the memories, the voices won. Days where there was nothing you, Steve, or anyone else could do to try and take him away from that horrible, horrible past he kept reliving over and over. Days where he wouldn’t talk almost at all, where the only recognition you would get of your presence as you walked wordlessly into his room at night would be a whisper of your name, the one you both pretended to forget when the days were good.

On those days there’s nothing you can do, and you try to accept that, even though the truth burns on its way down your throat. You try to accept that, and when the voices of the past stop being so loud, when the broken man of the hidden smiles perseveres past the battle between the Ghost and the Sergeant, you let your heart rest and promise, sometimes with words, sometimes without them, that you are going to be there either way.

You are brought back from your memories when you hear a soft sigh come from the man beside you. Turning your face to him, you watch as his brow twitches a bit, as his broad chest moves with a deep breath.

“Y/N.” He whispers as he wakes up, making your nameless heartbeat ache to spell his own name.

Reaching up slowly, carefully, you trace the line of his jaw with the tips of your fingers, leaving a ghostly trail of contact, just in case he is not going to accept your touch fully yet.

“James.” You whisper back, giddy smile on your lips, a bubbly sort of excitement at the way you can afford to say names you have wanted to forget for so long, if the illusion of intimacy, of secrecy, is not pierced by the real world, and all the pain it brings with it.

He opens his eyes quite quickly though, and a small smile curves up his lips.

“Doll,” He breathes, “You stayed.”

“Yeah,” You reply, stretching your body with a sigh of your own, “I should go back to my room, start the day.”

The hand hesitantly tracing the skin over your hip where your shirt rose during the night stops you, and you hold your breath as you wait for Bucky to speak.

“Or you can…y’know, stay. If you want to.”

“Are you implying you will _sleep in_?” You pretend to be scandalized, sure that your love-struck smile gives you away, but still putting up the act of teasing him a bit.

“I’m implying there’s a beautiful girl in my bed and I don’t want her runnin’ off just yet.”

You roll back towards him, hand settling over his chest and feeling the beats of his heart.

“Smooth, Barnes.” You breathe a laugh and look up into his clear grey-blue eyes. He seems to be just as lost as you in this small, perfect moment, and you can only remain there, in an almost embrace, two almost-soulmates, watching as his gaze flickers over your face, down to your lips and then back up to your eyes.

You can feel the heat radiating from his body, the way his hand on your skin manages to leave goosebumps trailing after his touch and burn you from the inside at the same time.

You are sure he can hear your heart beating faster, the same way you can feel his, the code for your name increasing the tempo as the seconds go by between you.

There’s a hint of uncertainty in his expression, but you quickly forget about it when you feel the soft, almost ghostly, press of his lips against yours.

You break apart after the simple connection, gazes meeting before he is crossing the distance between your lips again, this time with more pressure, more certainty.

You let your lips part for him as you feel his body inching closer to yours, bringing you on your back as your hand slowly travels up from his chest, tracing the furiously beating pulse in his neck, to his hair, letting the silky strands flow between your fingers.

Every nerve in your body is on fire, every bit of what you were, what you knew, is tied to this moment, is tied to the heart racing against your own, to the joy you feel spreading through your body, that you know doesn’t belong only to you.

You shyly sweep your tongue against his, smiling into the kiss when you hear Bucky’s soft groan. One of your legs raises from the bed as Bucky brings you even closer, hitching around his own and bringing his body closer against yours.

That is the moment Bucky breaks apart from your kiss, heavy and irregular breaths leaving his mouth as he leaves your body pressed against his, and rests his forehead against your neck.

You let your fingers caress his hair in what you hope is a soothing manner as you try bringing your own heartbeat back into a normal pace.

He had told you, holding your hand in the darkness of his room, that sometimes touch, especially the one you two shared, the intimate, caring one, was usually unbalancing, and although he craved it, at the same time he feared it because it took the control of his body away from him.

So, you press a soft kiss to his hair and try to bring him back his peace.

“Too much?” You whisper, and he breathes a laugh against your skin, making your heart clench at the realization that this is the first time you have heard him laugh.

“Sort of,” He admits, before swallowing past his dry throat, “I’m sorry, doll.”

“It’s okay.” Your voice soothes him, and his body relaxes over yours. He moves his head and presses the softest of kisses on the corner of your mouth, as if still unsure of your response now that the heated moment is past.

“Stay.” His voice leaves a trail of goosebumps on your skin, and you do nothing but wrap your other arm around his broad shoulders and close your eyes.

__

It is late in the afternoon, when Steve walks in, Captain America suit on, and Wanda trailing close behind.

Your phone chimes and you open your email to see Tony sent you a personal message and the results for what Friday found on the blonde woman from Croatia.

_Kseniya Nikolaev._

_Survivor of Project Cataclysm since the first injection of an experimental serum (the same as yours, kiddo) in April 1954. Sleeping agent of Hydra since._

_Files about her abilities have been destroyed or remain only in physical copies. Her childhood and youth before Hydra’s intervention are not of note._

_Has made appearances since the fall of Hydra in 2014, but only displayed her powers when confronting you in Croatia. Monitoring in the area and your track after the incident shows that she followed you to Austria and remained there until after the attempt on your life._

_No more data on her appears. Anywhere, kid. Maybe is time to take the dust off that pretty battle suit of yours._

_I will ready a simple mission for Steve, you, Sam and Wanda to take up. You can detour while they perform and infiltrate any facility you may have a lead on keeping secrets about the girl. If your involvement with the Avengers is leaked, we can cover it up as a new recruit mission thing._

_If there’s anything else, you just lemme know, kiddo. I’ll do what I can._

Natalia reads it over your shoulders, and when you raise your eyes to meet Steve’s, she is already shaking her head.

“We leave in fifteen,” Steve states, and you nod once in understanding. “The official statement will say you are support for me and Sam. Keep your equipment simple.”

“I just need one bullet, Captain.” You answer, a cold smile slowly spreading through your lips. There was a part of you that sang for this, for the possibility of having an infinity of possibilities if you only managed to _grasp them_. If you managed to protect what was yours, if you managed to get the upper hand and take the girl out of the picture before she did any more damage.

“No. You are not doing this,” Natalia starts, “ _Solnyshka_ , this is dangerous.”

“So is she. I _need_ this intel, Nat.”

You turn towards Natalia, eyes meeting hers with the same intensity, with the same stubbornness running through your veins. You can understand her fear, her apprehension, but you need her to understand why you need to do this, why you need to finally stop running.

“She’ll be going alone, but if anything happens I’m a call away. I have her back.” Steve soothes, interrupting your silent argument with Natalia as his voice acquires a softer edge. When you look up at the blond, you see him looking over your shoulder, not at your sister, but at Bucky.

“She doesn’t need you to, punk.” The brunet answers, although you can see the anxiety swimming behind his eyes.

“I’ll be careful,” You swear, eyes on his and a small, gentle smile on your lips. You turn your gaze to your sister, “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations: Ah, chyort voz’mi - Curse in Russian, like an oh, fuck if I remember correctly.
> 
> Also, this is the end of the second part, we are off to the start of the end. I hope you are enjoying, and random thought: D’ya think the first thing Bucky says every morning is her name, just in case she’s not really there, as not to forget her? ‘Cause I do. :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of the third and last part is here.  
> Summary: Kseniya seems to stand a step ahead of you, taunting you with the truth and the pain you prefer to forget, threatening the things you love the most. She plays the game well, and it is only a matter of time before she strikes. The only way to win is not to play, but you fear you are already in too deep.

The only sound besides your own breathing is the soft touch of your boots against the floor as you walk the empty halls of the facility.

To say you were familiar with these halls would be a lie. Yes, they took you in as a nineteen-year-old and dumped you into the underground facility, injecting the serum into your bloodstream and hoping for the best. But you do not remember a thing about the place.

You were one of the first survivors, but your enhancement was not as…visible as the other people. You remember a boy with hair as dark as night, and the way he would put his hands around other survivors’ heads and giggle as they screamed in agony. Apparently, he manipulated fear. You know he is dead, they took him down after too many of the survivors killed themselves to get away from the boy with the manic eyes.

But you don’t remember a girl made of mist, and according to Stark’s file, you and here were put in the facility barely a few months apart. Where was she kept? Project Cataclysm was contained within this facility, within this city that chose to ignore what they were doing to people in this cold, dark place.

You don’t remember Kseniya, maybe because you spent so little time in this place. Maybe because the doctors never paid much attention to you, thinking you had survived the serum but didn’t develop anything of note. Maybe because the day Hydra knew of your powers was the day you broke the neck of three soldiers and escaped into the city.

You click the safety off of your handgun as you stalk the hallways, searching for a safe room, an office, anything with data on the subjects.

You have searched the place before, when you were trying to find information based on your name. Fortunately enough, these specific monsters did not know much about you.

You enter one of the Doctor’s offices, you remember being brought there as soon as Hydra took you from your foster parents’ home. They took your vitals, gave you fluids and let you rest on a real bed.

The next day, you woke up strapped to a medical table and they were injecting liquid steel into your veins, from the way it felt as it traveled up your arm, into your heart.

The office is almost as you remember it, although what once was a pristine and white office is now a dusty remnant of a fallen regime. You wished you could pretend it didn’t make you glad, seeing Hydra’s ashes at your feet, even if their fall was not of your making.

You feel a thread within you strengthen, and close your eyes to feel the incoming sounds of footsteps about to be heard the…the familiar presence, somewhat blocked from our powers to identify.

Taking cover behind the desk, you count the seconds until the footsteps will approach. When the office door is opened slowly, you put your finger in the trigger, slowly, and wait for the intruder to make a move.

“Y/N?” Wanda whispers, prompting the air you had been holding to leave your lungs in a relieved breath that turns into a cough quickly.

“Wanda!? What the fuck are you doing here?” You whisper, standing up and approaching the girl. She looks you over and focuses her determined eyes on you.

“I don’t want you to be alone.”

“Wanda…”

“I am tired of losing people. You won’t be one of them if I can help it.” She snaps, jaw clenched and you reach up, clasping a hand on her shoulder and forcing your voice to be calmer.

“I get it, girl. I would love for people to have more faith in my abilities, but I get it.”

“We just worry,” She amends, small smile on her face. “You make things…better. We don’t want you to go.”

She motions for you to continue searching, but you linger to watch a reddish tint cover the girl’s hands, only to disappear just as quickly.

“There’s no people in this floor, at least none I could sense.” She assures you, and you turn to keep looking over the office.

The chair they prepped you in was still there, the circular light over it still pointing at the worn leather as if expecting to shine over another patient’s face, making their eyes burn even more, their tears shine even brighter against their cheeks.

You try not to stare directly at it as you pass, try to keep the past from grasping you again.

Past the chair and a few cupboards with medical equipment, there is a discreet white door, leading to a part of the office you have no memory of. Walking towards it and motioning for Wanda to follow you, you open it to reveal a small room, completely devoid of any furniture.

Except for the single wooden tank in the middle of it. You pray Wanda doesn’t know what it is.

“What…what is that?” The Sokovian walks towards it, and you try to follow her with your eyes, make sure she is okay, but… “Y/N? Are you okay?”

Shaking your head, you try taking a few steps backwards, only managing to hit your back against the wall, and you feel your legs give out underneath you as the memories take over.

__

_There’s something being injected into your arm, you try to take it out of their grasp but…but something doesn’t feel right, why can’t you move!?_

_“No, no, i-i-it’s not me. I’m here, I’m…I’m far away.” You whisper to yourself, arms wrapped around your upper body as you force your eyes open, force yourself to remember this isn’t you, force yourself to_ watch _, because it is all you can do._

 _Taking deep breaths, you clench your hands into fists, and tell yourself you need to be strong enough, you need to endure. For your sister, for_ him _._

_You will be an unwilling participant for as long as it takes, for as long as he resists, and if no one else remembers at the end, you swear you will._

_There’s screaming, agonizing screams in your head and you squeeze your eyes closed against the pain that makes your entire body tremble. You hear the voice break when the pain becomes too much to bear, you hear the whimper of a mind broken over a body that is not its own anymore._

_There’s shoving, and you see him fall to his knees, clumsily trying to stand up but they are quick to retaliate for the failure, an electric knife slicing swiftly but deeply over the skin in his back, the shock of the pain and the electricity making his body jump._

_There’s a laugh, somewhere in your head, but it isn’t yours, and it isn’t his, so it doesn’t matter. They drag him up by his arms when he can’t find the strength to do it on his own legs and push him into a tank of water. He tries to move out, but the weakly moving limbs are not enough against the three men holding him down as they close the lid._

_Before the darkness takes over, they shove a piece of paper into his hand._

_He looks at the picture, holds it between trembling fingers and you let out a sob, fingers scratching for purchase in your hair as you try to claw the images out of your head._

_“I want ya’ to look at that pretty face, Soldat. I want you to remember that pretty face for what is about to come,” Someone sneers, and the lid closes. A distant sound reaches him, but you don’t think he pays attention to it, breathing already labored and heartrate skyrocketing as the enclosed space seems to get smaller and smaller. “I want you to know what happens when you fail Hydra.”_

_With the drugs, it’s only a couple of hours before the hallucinations start. At first, they are quite simple, the same men as before, sometimes others, sometimes men and women without faces; beating and abusing a body that he doesn’t recognize as his own, at least not anymore._

_Then they become more complex, more painful. There’s a boy with big blue eyes laying dead on the street broken and alone, there’s a little girl with brown hair and charming smile being dragged away by soldiers dressed in black. There’s a girl with your eyes and your hair that lies in a crumpled mess on the floor, chest bleeding and he looks down to see a bloody metal hand holding a heart._

_You try speaking to him, try reaching out, try keeping him from the madness of being_ alone _. You try believing the universe would not be as cruel as to allow two people to connect in the worst or best moments of their lives and not be able to communicate._

_You do not know if it works at all, if it helps or not, but you keep talking, you keep telling him the name your heart spells, and how he is going to get out, and a thousand other promises you know you can’t keep._

_There’s no way to know if he hears you, or if he even understands you, but when you hear the soldiers come back and drag him out of the tank, body limp from exhaustion and mind broken from the tricks it played on itself, you feel his flesh hand clenching around something._

_A picture._

_And you hear a name whispered in the dark._

_Your own._

_And that, that is enough to give you hope._

____

There’s cold ground under your cheek, and the smell of blood clouds your senses. Opening your eyes with a groan, you suppress a scream when you see two men in dark uniforms drag a semi-conscious Bucky towards you…and through a wall, disappearing as if they were made of smoke.

“What the actual…”

“You saw them too?” Wanda whispers, and you lift your head to watch the girl with her legs set apart in a battle stance, arms stretched at her sides and red mist covering her hands.

“Yeah. What was that?” You answer, sitting up with a wince and lifting your hand to your face, noticing blood coming down from your nose. Wanda relaxes and walks over to you, kneeling when she is close enough.

“You…you just passed out, and…and then they appeared, carrying…carrying…”

“The Winter Soldier,” You finish for her, “I assume it wasn’t you? The…the figures, they weren’t your doing?”

“No, I don’t…what happened?”

Motioning to the chamber with one hand you explain, “I was…That thing, it…triggered a memory. When my sister broke the soulbond between Bucky and me it took my memories of it. Most of them are coming back, and th-they are not nice.”

“What is that thing, Y/N?”

“Sensory deprivation chamber. Hydra’s favorite corrective practice,” You cannot keep the fury and bitterness off your voice, not even for the sake of the girl, and you stand up, avoiding looking at it, “When your mind is broken you can’t fight back.”

“That’s…”

“Usual procedure. I didn’t know they had it in this facility. Probably explains why even after many survived the serum no one but me and apparently Kseniya here left this place alive.” You continue, almost to yourself as you walk out of the office, leaving the Sokovian to trail behind you.

You feel like every inch of you is covered in tiny shards of glass, waiting for the wrong move, for the right push, to pierce your last shield and make you _bleed_.

“You projected a memory into reality, Y/N. Don’t you think we should talk about that?” She insists, and you turn around with a snarl,

“No! No, I don’t want to fucking talk about it! I just saw my soulmate get tortured! I have been for months now and I did for years! I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to…I-I-I keep seeing it, I’m…I’m right _there_ but I can’t do shit and I…”

You rest your forehead on the cool wall of the hall, trying to force your heart to calm down, the images of the memory to leave your head, the mask to be put back in place.

“Surată…” Wanda starts, but you shake your head, squeezing your eyes shut, you know not if to stop the tears from falling or because of the pain coursing through your skull.

“I’m fine. Let’s just get the files and search the internal network of computers, if they still work.”

Wanda is scouting the west area while you try to worm your way into the network of the facility. Finally, you manage to gain access.

Too many files of the same name pop up on the screen, and you choose one randomly.

Natalia -or the version of her you never knew, the broken girl that grew up without a family, amongst monsters- is easily overpowered by the larger man that is training her, some voices scream at her to fight back, others laugh when his arms lock around your sister’s neck in a headlock, taking away her air supply.

When the redhead gives up and he releases her, she falls to the floor, coughing in her desperate attempts to get back the oxygen in her body. The man walks over her crumpled body on the ground as another girl, this time even younger is thrown into the center of the room, paired against the man. But then the bit about Natalia’s defeat starts playing again, on a loop.

There’s bile churning at your stomach, tears brimming in the corners of your eyes as you try to close the video, as you try to stop the sounds, the images.

But then another video starts playing without your input, playing over the training session in the Red Room.

When you see the man pushed into that machine you have seen too many times, the device ready to spread the electrical waves through an innocent’s body, you feel like you will throw up.

An audio file plays over the sounds of your sister’s body hitting the floor, her gasps for breath; Bucky’s screams of agony.

A voice you sadly know starts talking in perfect Russian. Kseniya, the girl you are here to find.

“You weren’t the first one to come back home, little huntress. You won’t be the last, but you are the one that matters. Odd life you have led after leaving this place. But let’s face it, you are just a girl running with monsters. Why don’t we save ourselves the tr-…”

You shoot the monitor without even thinking.

When Wanda runs into the room after hearing the gunshots, she sees you, shoulders hunched and head hanging low, arms supporting you as you lean on the desk.

“I want them all to _die_ ,” You snarl, hating how your voice breaks, how your knees buckle. Hating how you can be so easily manipulated, how quickly they turn your humanity against you. “I want to see them all suffer and die, Wanda. Each and every one of them.”

A delicate hand grabs your shoulder gently, squeezing once,

“I know.” She whispers, and you have the feeling it is not a simple civility to soothe the anger boiling under your skin.

Forcing yourself to take a deep breath, you straighten your back and swipe the blood off your nose.

“I am going to hunt them down, and I will start with _her_.”

__

Almost an hour goes by before you finish scouting the facility for any files on the mist girl, and as expected there is no agents inside. You and Wanda head safely for the rendezvous point Steve pointed for you, files kept safely inside a briefcase.

Walking into the quinjet, conversation easily starts between the four of you and you feel like you can leave behind what you remembered in that place, but you can’t.

So you go through the files. Most of them are encrypted somehow, but you assume Tony will get through them quite easily.

Still, even the documents that don’t have a code to them are vague at best and give you nothing on what this girl could want, what the true extent of her abilities is. There’re only several detached and professional descriptions of her survival of the serum, and the corrective methods applied when she fought back. Which she apparently did, often.

Apparently, the chamber was a personal favorite of the facility, but so was solitary confinement, and electrical shock therapy.

You try not to see the similarities, but they are too blatant to ignore. Whether it was official or not, that facility was trying to recreate the Winter Soldier Program’s methods of subduing a mind, and you can’t help but have the sinking feeling they succeeded.

You search within you for a speck of you that feels anything more than disgust and anger towards her, but you cannot. Hydra’s weapon or not, she put your family on the line on her petty game, and you will not stand for that.

But for some reason she was kept a secret, and was sent somewhere as a sleeping agent, much like a Black Widow, to await Hydra’s orders. What caused her to strike now? Who was smart enough to decode everything and go after the girl? Why would they?

By the time you arrive at the compound the questions have been swimming in your head for too long and all you want to do is sleep until everything is resolved.

But your sister has other plans. You are tackled by her petite figure as soon as you take the elevator down from the heliport at the roof, her toned arms wrapping around you and then pushing you away a little as she frantically looks you over.

“The monitor said your vitals went haywire while you were in the facility. What happened? Is that blood under your nose? Was there anyone in there?”

“I’m fine too, Tasha. Thank you for asking.” Steve mutters as he walks by you two, but your sister ignores him, looking at you and awaiting an answer.

“I’m fine. How did you read my vitals?” Your voice turns angrier, “Natalia, did you put a chip on me!?”

“No, don’t be silly. Stark’s suit reads your vitals.” She soothes, but you only roll your eyes in response.

“You are insane. You do know I survived without you once, right?”

“You do know I don’t care, right?” She parrots back, big smile on her face as she links your arm with hers and walks you towards the living room, “Have you seen Barnes yet?”

“Considering you tracked me down and smothered me in your love as soon as we landed…no, I haven’t.” You snicker when she reaches to tug playfully at a strand of your hair, lips furrowed.

__

Natalia leans forwards, resting her head in her hands with a tired sigh. You have been at this for hours, searching through your memories, through the data you collected and asking every soul that could know a thing; trying to untangle the mess that the mist girl created.

“You said she hijacked the network in the facility, that she was counting on you going there. What was so important of her to say?”

“She thinks being your sister made me spineless, she thinks I will run to the best bidder if she plays enough with my head,” You snarl, not taking your eyes off the notebook in front of you. “I think she is under the illusion that I owe her to suffer because of what she endured there.”

“But you said she may be controlled by someone else.”

“We both went toe to toe with the Winter Soldier, Natalia. He didn’t play with his food. She does.”

“I still don’t think she is pulling the strings here. Too exposed, too personal for it to be so polished if she really is behind the whole thing.”

“Maybe. But she is the one I’m taking down first.” You didn’t even bother hiding the bloodthirst in your voice, and although you know her sister noticed, based on the way her big eyes traveled to you for a second, she doesn’t comment on it.

You have been side by side for almost a century, if not in the flesh then by heart. She knows you better than anyone, and if there is someone out there who understands the need to protect what’s yours, is your sister. The need to keep safe what you love, because you both knew loss too young. The need to force the ground to settle under your feet, because you both knew uncertainty for too long.

“So she’s playing with you. But why? And why make you believe it is the Winter Soldier after you?” She ponders, referring to the red star that illuminated the monitor in your apartment, the references to your intel on the Ghost when she first encountered you in Croatia.

“Almost everyone that knew of the Winter Soldier knew of his attempt on Hydra’s lost link, Nat. She either tried to get you back on his trail, or…”

“Tried to drive you away.”

“And back to the loving arms of Hydra.” You finish for her, continuing your notes and perceiving from the corner of your eye how Natalia stands up, running a hand through her hair.

“Which only furthers my point. Someone out there, someone with a high rank and lasting resources, is tracking you down. Someone wants you back on Hydra’s side.”

“Nat.” You call out when she starts pacing, notebook forgotten at your side as you reach for her.

“There’s one sick fuck out there who is after my baby sister, don’t tell me to calm down.”

“’Your baby sister’ can handle herself, Nat. What’s with everyone ignoring that I lived without you or your merry group of misfits having my back for decades?”

She shrugs but reaches out and brings you into a one-armed hug.

“You are soft around the edges, not like us. You…you are what we were before they got to us, and…I wanna keep you soft while I can.”

“You said it yourself, they won’t get to me here, even if they tried, which they won’t.” You assured, wrapping your own arms around your sister.

The sound of the bedroom door opening breaks you and your sister apart, and you both turn around to see Bucky peeking his head into the room slightly.

“Natalia have you seen your…oh, hey, doll. Ready to go to bed?”

It would not be the first time you went to his room just to sleep, despite promises of just staying until he falls asleep. However, hearing him admit to wait for you before going to sleep makes the part of you still bent on hurting back the people that hurt you and your family give in to the voice that whispers to enjoy this, to enjoy the second chance neither of you thought you would get.

“Yeah…I’ll be there in a second.”

He turns around with a smile and leaves you alone with the redhead. You dread turning to face her again, but you do, and contain a sigh at her smug expression

“So, you and Barnes…”

“So, you and Rogers…” You retort quickly, lifting an eyebrow.

“Not the same!” She yells after you as you walk out of the room.

“Enough to get you to shut up!”

__

You walk into Bucky’s room trying to force the memories out of your head, the screams, the pain and the torture. You wish you could have done something other than watching, for years on end as he lost himself. You wish you could do something other than watch _now_ , as he tries to put together pieces only him can find.

Bucky is standing near the simple bookshelf where he keeps the files you gave him on the first night you spent on the compound, tracing the figure of something you cannot see.

“Hello, handsome.”

Your lips curve in a gentle smile when he closes the distance between you and gently cups your cheek with his right hand. Bucky leans down and presses your foreheads together.

“Hey, doll.”

When he leans in to whisper a stuttering breath against your lips, you barely keep yourself from leaning up in your tiptoes to finally press your lips against his. But, he only stretches your torment for a heartbeat, kissing you sweetly.

It is when you are already in bed, the only sound reaching the room the soft hum of Stark’s self-sustaining tower, when Bucky speaks again.

“Y/N?”

“I’m here.” You answer, jaw clenched at the question you know is about to follow.

“You remembered something, didn’t you?”

“Y-Yes. The…the day they gave you my picture. T-The chamber.” You close your eyes, tears clogging your throat.

Bucky stays silent for a long time, his voice merely a whisper when he speaks again.

“I’m sorry.”

The pain in his tone, the way you hear the shame, the defeat shining through the voice of this resilient man; makes you turn around with more force than you expected and state firmly,

“You…James, you did nothing wrong.”

“They were punishing me for a reason, doll. I failed.” There’s a sad, resigned twist of his lips, and fear clutches your chest.

Laying a hand on his chest, right over his heart and feeling his heat through the thin material of his shirt gives you the confidence to look back at the monster lurking behind his tender and broken gaze, to stand in front of the void filled with voices that told him for too long that he wasn’t enough, that he was doomed to destruction, and deny their claims on his soul.

Your eyes stay locked on his when you fiercely whisper, “Nothing of what happened to you in that hellhole was your fault, my love. _Nothing_.”

He doesn’t answer, his eyes merely going to your hand where it rests on his chest as you lean over him resting your elbow on the bed. He reaches up, slowly and looking back up at you for an instant before dropping his gaze back to your hand; as if giving you time to back away from his touch, and takes your hand gently in his.

“I…I tried getting out, the first times,” He explains, fingers toying absently with yours. “Broke the tank a-and got out when the…when my head got too loud, but that only meant they were going to do something worse at the end and I-I preferred something that didn’t leave scars.

He frowns a little, as if trying to recall a long-lost memory. For a few instants it feels as if that is all he will share with you, but his gravely voice starts again at last,

“It made everything…fuzzy, being left there for so long. I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t and…and I guess I let them know somehow, b-because they started with the drugs not long after.

He squirms a little where he is laying the bed, clearly uncomfortable, and you rush to take your hand away from him and sit up on the bed. He follows your lead after a few breaths, leaning back against the headboard.

Raising his eyes to meet yours for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, he swallows and extends a hand.

It confuses you for a second, that he is willing -and asking- for contact in a moment such as this, but you place your hand in his with no hesitation, hoping to ground him with your touch.

“It got harder to b-block out the voices after that. I started _believing_ them and…I never forgot things, n-not really but…it was as if I were watching from…from the distance. The memories felt like someone else’s,” He shakes his head, eyes going back to your joined hands and voice almost a shameful whisper when he adds, “They…they still do, on bad days.

When he falls silent again, you take a deep breath and, running your thumb gently over the skin of the hand holding yours, you whisper, “I know, love, I know. But they are yours, and the ones they did take away, we’ll…we’ll get them back. I promise.”

You ignore the tears that have started falling down your face, you ignore the way your chest feels so tight it cannot be true that your heart keeps on beating within it. You ignore it, because if there was one time in your life you wished you could take someone’s pain and turn it into your own, even if meant a lifetime of torment to grant them a blink of peace, it is at this moment. Because you have watched silently for too long, because the world took so much of him already. Because you swear in that moment that you will die before they merely graze him with their darkness again.

Bucky’s eyes look at you, study your face, your expression. There’s a hopeful kind of disbelief in his gaze, the mind that was not his own for too long telling him he doesn’t deserve whatever you are offering. There’s also a profound kind of anguish, the kind that doesn’t go away, the kind that is a mix of resignation and agony.

His eyes finally drift away from yours, and you watch his profile, witnessing his jaw clenching and his eyes clouding over with memories when he starts speaking again,

“It wasn’t…when they put me in that box, it wasn’t just that. They were…they wanted to punish me for…I don’t even know for what. It would last days, weeks sometimes. Wouldn’t let me sleep, wouldn’t let me eat. S-Sometimes they would…beat me, and s-stuff, but I…that didn’t feel too bad. Wasn’t like…I didn’t see it as _me._ ” Your heart breaks at the admission, at the way he refers to his body as something so stranger to himself. A choked sob wrecks your body and leaves you shaking, but you squeeze his hand and wait for him to continue, “After some rounds in the chamber, after they started trying the drugs I…I stopped asking them t-to give me food, or water, I…I stopped begging for them to let me sleep, or let me out of the tank. I knew I failed, I knew I deserved it, and sometimes I still think I do because I…I…doll, I…”

Finally, he breaks.

You once again have to watch one more time as the strongest man you know doubles over in pain, broad shoulders shaking under the weight of decades-old pain. There’s a sob torn out of his throat, his hand squeezing yours so tightly you can’t even feel it anymore.

“I never wanted any of this! I…I just…I didn’t w-want to do any of that. I’m sorry. I-I’m so sorry.” His hand leaves yours to reach for his scarred left shoulder, nails scratching painfully, clawing at the skin surrounding the metal as he keeps repeating his pleas of forgiveness over and over.

With a soft whisper of his name, you turn him slightly towards you, wrapping your arms around him as best as you can and holding on tightly to his trembling frame.

His voice turns into painful murmurs, the same words repeated over and over as you hold him as tightly as you can, his tears staining your shirt and yours falling down your cheeks to his hair.

You try soothing him, try whispering that everything will be okay, try anything you can do to keep him from completely breaking. But at the end you do nothing but hold him, hold him as his breaths falter, as your throat goes raw from whispering promises between rushed kisses over his hair, his forehead. Hold him as he falls apart.

__

You cannot sleep. Bucky has fallen into a restless slumber a few hours ago, but there’s no way to stop the fury, the pain coursing through your bloodstream like poison.

There’s a part of you that with the weight of his arm around you, bringing you closer his chest in what you believe to be the most touch he has endured asides from your first kiss, wants you to close your eyes and enjoy the way his heartbeat on your ear makes the world around you stop spinning so out of control.

There’s also a part of you that doesn’t stand the stillness, the same routine that made your heart skip a beat a day ago now is only a cage, where whoever is trying to hurt the people you care for is going to keep you until you are of use, until they need you running again.

“Doll? You awake?” The brunet whispers, letting you feel the vibrations of his voice in his chest.

“Yeah.”

He sighs, bringing you even closer to his body and breathing a kiss on your temple.

You cannot stay and wait for the next move, not when Kseniya -or whoever is controlling her- has proven time and time again to be too many steps ahead of you.

“Bucky?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you…do you remember the names of the Doctors that put you in the chambers?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations: “Surata” is a term to refer to a girl, a friend or a sister in Romanian (chose it as Sokovian language cause why not). Though you shouldn’t trust me, I do my language research at like three am and I suck at Romanian.
> 
> Also, random quote: “I am coming for all the monsters that ever touched him, I am coming for all the ones who twisted his stars into shadows. They turned him into a nightmare, so I’m going to be theirs (and they’ll never wake up).” K.S.


	11. Chapter 11

He tells you some of the names, describes some of the faces he remembers. You listen in silence, the only tell that you are awake and listening id the repetitive movement of your thumb across the skin over his heart, that you cannot believe still spells your name after you failed so many times in keeping him away from pain.

When Bucky’s voice dies down, and whatever he remembers of his time in Siberia is already out of his mouth or locked tight, kept safe, against his soul, you lift your eyes to meet his.

You find that Bucky has kept his eyes closed, face relaxed and while his flesh hand remains around your frame, bringing you close, his mind still telling him he shouldn’t touch people with the left one, you feel light gentle tugs on your hair, and have the sneaking suspicion you will be untangling stray hairs from the plates in his hand tomorrow.

“Have you ever thought about…finding them?” You ask, voice low. He opens his eyes to look at you, and lightly moves ups shoulders up and down in a shrug.

“Sometimes. It would do no good, though.”

“Bucky, these people hurt you.” Your voice is a little more forceful than you would like, but you are terrified about hearing in his voice the same detachment you have heard countless times in your sister’s.

“I…I know. But they aren’t hurtin’ no one else now, right?”

“They should pay.” You insist, brow furrowing, but he only shrugs again in what you notice is not detachment but…but the will to move on from that past. Your heart soars in your chest, and you have never felt happier about having had it once spell _James Barnes_ than you do in that moment.

“Maybe. I won’t make ‘em.”

He leaves you speechless, through his slurred words as exhaustion from what happened earlier catches up on his body, through the Brooklyn accent sneaking through his voice. You look up at him, opening and closing your mouth a couple of times before you can find yourself speaking without words failing you midway.

“You…you are the strongest man I know. I am so proud of you.” A breathless chuckle leaves your lips, and you lean up to press a kiss against the stubble in his jaw.

A small, almost nonexistent laugh leaves his lips, and you both choose to ignore how his voice trembles when he retorts,

“I think you hit your head when you fell down in Russia, doll,” You roll your eyes and press another kiss on his face, this time closer to his mouth, and your own lips curve into a smile when you see a hint of a blush covering his cheeks. Bucky continues, “Don’t mind my big mouth, though, I get to keep ya fawning over me like I deserve it. I ain’t complainin’.

You steal one more kiss and playfully swat at his chest, where one of your hands still rest, keeping track of his heart.

The corners of his eyes crinkle adorably when he smiles down at you.

“Keep that up and I’m never shuttin’ my trap again, sugar.”

You roll your eyes at him and are about to answer with your own quip when he closes the distance between you, kissing you softly and with more intensity that he had let on, as if there’s more than what can be spoken that he tries to share in your kiss.

“Thank you, doll,” He whispers when you part, breath fanning over your lips and brow furrowed as he keeps his eyes closed. “Just…thank you.”

“Always.” You whisper back and mold your body to his as you both try to fall back to sleep.

__

By the time Bucky wakes up again you are long gone from the bed, sitting in the sofa of the main room near the kitchen with your computer, furiously typing away as Natasha eats breakfast sitting next to you.

Bucky crosses the door to his bedroom, eyes frantically searching for you and you have only a minute to ponder the stupid decision of leaving him to wake up alone after last night before you are standing up and walking towards him.

“Everything okay?” You ask, your hand stretched between you in a silent offer. Instead of nodding or shaking his head, letting you know his response to your offer of contact, Bucky takes your hand in his and brings you closer until your bodies are touching almost from head to toe.

He keeps your hand in his, absently playing with your fingers as he bends his frame to make himself smaller, head resting on your shoulder and face hiding against your neck. He lets out a deep breath and with a whisper of your name, lets go of your hand and wraps both arms around your frame, holding you tight.

“Nightmare?” You ask, arms around his shoulders, one hand rubbing circles on his tense back and the other playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. He nods against your neck, not saying anything, and you feel your heart clenching on your chest, “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up.”

“S’okay. Wasn’t too bad.”

“Memory?” You ask, following the same ritual of every time he suffers one of his night terrors. They are usually memories of something horrible that happened, usually by his hand to other people, and sometimes to what other people did to him. Thankfully there’s some lucky nights where instead of assuring him it is over, you can promise him what he dreamt of was nothing but a conjuration of his imagination.

The brunet shakes his head in response and you breathe a sigh of relief as you bring him even closer, standing on your tiptoes. After a few beats of silence, he speaks, voice rough against your skin and so low you can barely hear it.

“I’m sorry, for…for last night.”

With a frown you step back, noticing how his hand spasms against your back, fear taking over his eyes for one second before he realizes you are just backing away so you can look at him.

“Nothing to apologize for.”

Bucky shakes his head, “Shouldn’t have to see that, doll.”

“I’m not here for the good days alone, Buck. I am here to stay, and last night just proved you are getting better, and you are more resilient than _they_ thought.” You assure, holding his face between your hands, and after you make sure he heard you past the voices of his past, you lean up and lay a kiss on the tip of his nose, “’Sides, I told you what will happen every time you say something bad about yourself.”

“That’s only gonna make me keep yappin’, doll.”

“Maybe. Maybe it will make you start saying good things instead, once I show you what happens if you do.” You reply with a smirk and a wink as you walk backwards towards the couch.

You watch his face light up with a smirk of his own, and when he bites his lower lip with a dangerous glint on his eye, you turn around so he doesn’t see the red coloring your cheeks.

“Not on the common room, people!” Natalia complains as you walk towards her, turning your back to Bucky. After a beat, she adds, her voice lower, more like Black Widow’s than your sister’s, “It’s my sister’s ass you are looking at, Barnes. Watch it.”

“I am.” He replies cheekily, forcing a loud laugh from you. Natasha merely grunts in response.

You sit back on the couch and take the computer back into your lap, leaning your back on your sister’s side as you stretch next to her. Her arm wraps around your front, forearm close to your throat and fingers toying with your head as she focuses back on the book in her hand.

“What are you doing?” Bucky asks, turning back around and walking to the kitchen, presumably to get himself some coffee in that disgustingly ugly mug Sam had gotten as a joke but now he kept safe and used every morning.

“Research,” You answer, eyes glued back to the screen. “I was thinking; Natalia is right.”

“As always.” Your sister grumbles, taking a bite off her muffin.

“Shut up,” You say, to then turn back to your previous conversation with Bucky. “Kseniya’s vendetta against me is too personal, but that only means she has memories of our time with Hydra, and the training. She shouldn’t, not as a sleeper agent.”

“Someone woke her up.” James states, walking towards you.

“Exactly. Someone that knew about the Winter Soldier program, someone that had the experience to twist her memories.”

“A Handler?” His voice is muffled when he presses a kiss to your hair, and you shake your head in response.

“The Handler’s initiative died with the Red Room. We are looking for someone bigger.” You insist, looking over the several pages you have opened on the last active members of Hydra.

“What would they want from you anyways? No one…no one knows who you are to me, right?” He asks, resting his chin lightly on your head as he looks over at the files oy have opened.

“No. I technically died in the sixties, with the serum. Well, the girl with James Barnes on her heartbeat did. There’s no way, unless someone forced a change in the files, with biological samples to support their claim.”

“So, you are looking for them…for what? You do not know what they want from you.”

A cold smile curves your lips upwards, “But I know what _I_ want from _them_.”

He moves away from you, trying to find your gaze,

“Doll…” He starts, and your sister scoffs in annoyance next to you.

“I have been dealing with her impulsive ass for seventy years, Barnes. If there were a way to convince her to change her mind, I would have found it.” Natalia quips, but soon enough Steve walks onto the room drinking some sort of smoothie and puts an end to the conversation.

Bucky straightens up and smiles affectionately at his best friend, “Morning, Stevie.”

“Morning, pal. Ready for our run?” He asks, smiling in your and your sister’s direction in greeting.

“Yeah,” Bucky mutters, leaning down to press a soft kiss to your lips. “See you when I get back?”

You blink a couple of times, trying to clear the cobwebs off your mind, and somehow nod. Amazement and pride surge through you at his resilience. After what happened last night and having another nightmare in what had been a good three nights without them, you would expect for him to retract a little, specially from you and your touch.

“Of course,” You finally find your voice, and smile up at him, although his eyes never veer off yours as he rests his forehead gently to your own. You run a hand through the hair at the nape of his neck and ask, “Don’t you have the event at the Veterans center with Sam today, though?

He nods, and you lower your voice when you whisper,

“Are you…sure, Buck?”

He presses another kiss to your lips, over too soon but stealing your breath away. His smile is bigger than you have ever seen it when he answers.

“Yeah, I’m…I’m good. I think I’m…better, maybe,” He assures you, eyes again on your own as he stands up again and breaks your small bubble. “I’ll see you when I get back, doll.”

“See you.” You breathe, but the soldiers are already gone, and you are left with no ground under your feet but, for the first time in what feels like forever, the uncertainty, the fluttering in your chest and the giddy smile pulling at your lips make you feel nothing but secure, safe.

“You do know Steve is going to go mother-hen up in your ass after this little PDA thing, right?” Nat deadpans, making you jump in the couch and effectively bringing you out of your reverie.

“Ha, ha, very funny, Nat.”

“I am telling the truth. It’s good, though, seeing you both happy,” Her eyes narrow in your direction, “Would be a shame if someone were to be a reckless little fuck and ended up messing things up.”

“It’s too early for this shit, Nat.”

“That doesn’t work if you didn’t actually sleep, Solnyshka.” 

“Natalia, I’m seriously not in the mood for this shit.” You groan, standing up from the couch but your sister is quick to follow, quiet anger shown in her stance in her big green eyes.

“Oh, you are using my full name,” She mocks, voice raising, “Should I be worried? Am I going to have to chase my sister across the world again?”

“I never asked you to chase me! In fact, you weren’t so keen on keeping me close when you left me alone to chase after a Ghost!”

“Oh, don’t bullshit me now, Y/N. We both know this isn’t about that.” She spits back, crossing her arms.

“Then what is it about, oh-so-smart Black Widow?”

“It’s about you proving to yourself and to that sadistic bitch that you can take her down by yourself.” There’s a flash of movement and she is standing in front of you, “It’s about you putting a burden on your shoulders that doesn’t belong to you.”

“It is _my_ trail that crazy fuck is after, it is _my_ people she is targeting, and it is _my_ responsibility to take her down before she does any real damage.”

“It was not her. She didn’t do that to us.” Your sister sentences, and silence stretches between you.

It was Natasha that held you when your thoughts became too loud at some point during the night, and you stumbled out of yours and Bucky’s room with tears brimming in your eyes. It was her that told you it was all okay, that it meant healing. It was her that saw you at your weakest, that saw the girl forced to _watch_ shine through the woman that had forgotten everything.

You made her promise not to tell a soul, not even Steve, about what had happened, about what Bucky told you about Hydra’s punishments. She agreed with soft kisses peppered on your hairline and strong arms wrapped around you so tight you had the feeling she was just keeping you from flying apart at the seams.

She watched you slowly calm down, she watched as the tears slowly dried and the anguish hardened into fury, into the instinctual need to hurt back, to see them all _bleed_.

And because even despite the pain, the experiences, the _years_ , you were still sisters, made from the same material; she knew what it meant when the coldness settled in your eyes.

“But she represents it,” You retort quickly, “She carries the flag, and I’m burning them all down.”

She stares at you for a few instants, her eyes searching your own in that way of hers that made you think she was able to see your very soul, and then, with carefully controlled ire, with measured words, she states,

“You are hiding something from me.”

“Natalia…”

“Don’t you dare lie to me.” She snaps, and you see her shoulders moving faster and faster with every beat that goes by between you. The pain for your sister, the one that died screaming in a cold facility in Belarus, burns you from the inside out, and you only manage to croak out,

“I have to, at least for now.”

When you try turning around, her hand coming down on your wrist stops you. You turn back to face her, fists clenched as your training reacted to someone laying a hand on you.

“I will not lose you to Hydra, _sestra_. Not for him, and least of all for me.”

“It is not your choice to make, Nat.” You sentence, and you turn your back to her as you walk out, leaving half of your heart behind.

__

You pace in front of Wanda, fingers running through your hair absently and the computer laying open in her bed where you left it as soon as the system got overriden; taunting you with its mere existence.

“You need to swear to me that you will not tell a soul,” You beg, not stopping in your anxious walk, “On Pietro’s memory.”

You know it is a low blow, it is a horrible thing to ask of the girl, but you cannot help it. The message and the files arrived suddenly, as you were looking over some of Vision’s and Stark’s notes on Wanda’s powers, and trying to find a connetion to your own as you trained with the Sokovian.

“Y/N…”

“Swear to me, Wanda.” Hazel eyes battle yours for a few instants, and just  when you think she will give in, she turns her gaze to the computer on the bed and sighs.

“Whatever it is, you cannot ask of me to just…to let something bad happen. I know you are scared, but there’s no reason to be this reckless about it.”

You shake your head and start pacing again, raking your brain to find a way to make her understand.

“I have tried going against Hydra before, too many times to count. For him, for myself, for my sister. I know this game too well by now, Wan. I know what is to come.”

“You are not alone.” She insists, but you can only smile sadly her way when you answer,

“I will be if it means the survival of those I love. I need you to swear to me, Wanda. _Please_.”

She nods reluctantly, neither of you mentioning the thin layer of tears glazing her eyes as you sigh in relief and walk to the computer.

Countless files on Project Cataclysm are open in the monitor before you, files on countless kids and young adults who were used as guinea pigs. The serum itself, the selection of subjects, the notes on the survivors. The people responsible. The corrective practices.

The link of the Project you were in to the Winter Soldier Program.

Corrective practices, torture methods, drugs that enhance compliance. Everything. Names, dates and results.

You click on the audio files sent and squeeze your eyes shut when Kseniya’s voice fills the room,

“You wanted data, little huntress. Here you go. You wanted names, you got ‘em. I’m not here to be your enemy, I’m here to offer you an out. You have hidden in the shadows too long, dolly, it’s time to come home.

You clench your jaw and keep your eyes on the wall far behind you, even though you can feel Wanda trying to find your gaze, trying to connect with you. Kseniya continues,

“You know the kind of information I’ve got. If I have the names of the highest ranking officers, you know I know every dirty trick in the book,” She lets out a raspy, mocking laugh at her own choice of words, “that can ruin your sister’s and the Soldat’s lives. I want something simple and easy. My silence, in exchange for your abilities.”

A couple of days ago, Wanda had literally floated the way into the kitchen when you were having lunch with your sister and Sam, smile on her face and excitedly telling you about how she and ‘Vis’ had been theorizing about what happened when your brain recovered one of the memories between yours and Bucky’s bond.

According to Visions research, your abilities to see the immediate future were but the tip of the iceberg of something deeper, something regarding time itself. The more intense your emotions, the more access you gave your body to the power the serum had given you.

Which meant that when you saw Bucky being dragged out of the sensory deprivation chamber in your memories, it wasn’t an illusion what was reflecting on the real world, but a…window, in Wanda’s words, to the past.

Vision stated that probably the reason behind the increased reach in your abilities was due to Wanda’s concern over you when you fell unconscious -when he mentioned you had passed out, you could feel your sister’s eyes drilling a hole in the back of your neck, but you had ignored her- and a somewhat unintentional pull of her mind to yours.

You have been trying, in these last few days, to try and recreate the event with something less traumatizing, but to no avail. Wanda is still afraid of reaching into your head, so you depend on emotional turmoil from both you and the girl at the same time to try and recreate that window, let it be to the future or the past.

Mind you, emotional turmoil is not hard to find for people like you or Wanda, but considering everything, you decided to stick to the exercises.

You thought you’d have time. You thought they wouldn’t know. How foolish you had been.

Kseniya continues,

“You are stronger than you realize, sweetie, and I’m afraid Hydra has gone too long without the advantage. What gave us our edge for seventy years was an unstable weapon that liked to pretend it had been human once. Can you imagine what we can accomplish with someone like you, someone like me? Together?

There’s a manic tone taking over her voice, a need to convince you. And you cannot escape the fear it ignites in you, that someone so dangerous is so certain they are right.

“The rebirth of the Winter Soldier program is due anytime now, little huntress. And it does not rest on your broken little plaything’s shoulders, oh no, but on yours.

You hear Wanda’s gasp, and you clench your hands at your sides.

“So stay there if you want, play house and hide who you are. But know that Hydra was your sister’s family, for way longer than you were; and know that you can try and claim the Asset’s heart all you want, but his soul will never be yours again.

There’s a sizzling sound and the files start disappearing, some sort of unknown virus taking over the system and erasing the files she sent you.

“It is better if you just come home, and we both know it. I’m not calling yet, but I want you to know I have the advantage, always will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random thought: Is the reader being a little shit? Of course she is. Does she have her reasons to be? Of course she does! Does that mean I will stop writing her big sister and her adopted little sister screaming some sense into her? Of course not. Never.


	12. Chapter 12

Tony calls you into his home/office in the center of New York the morning after the incident with Kseniya. Although fear clutches at your heart, making your blood run like ice within you, willing you to freeze and remain still, as to avoid any more damage; you rise from your spot in the training room where you were practicing the new extension of your powers with Wanda, and say goodbye with a kiss on her cheek.

You know she didn’t say anything, wouldn’t, not when she put Pietro’s memory in the line. And even though you know, you wait for the pang of doubt to fill you, for the instinct do doubt and to distrust everyone else. It doesn’t come. You look at the Sokovian’s warm eyes and feel nothing but affection for the girl that lost too much; and there’s a voice in your head that tells you, you should fear the new softness you are acquiring.

Tony greets you with a smile, one that you actually believe is genuine.

“Hello, kiddo. Good to see you out of that compound. Gotta admit, I’ve been dying to run some tests on you, even though it would be Banner’s specialty, I’m pretty sure I could whip up some quick experiments.”

Your eyes narrow, “That…doesn’t sound good.”

“Oh, I don’t mean repeating Cataclysm or anything, just…tinkering.”

“With my blood.”

“Probably. Your powers too,” He shrugs, turning his back at you and walking towards his desk. With a deep breath, he continues, his voice taking a serious note, “You know, kid, I look after people. No point in having more money than God and the brains to fight ‘im for the throne if I don’t get to use on the people that matter.

He takes a small memory card from one of the compartments in his desk and offers it to you. Not sure what to make of his words, you walk towards Tony and just eye him until he continues speaking.

“You are part of our little band of misfits now. Whatever you need, you tell me and I will do my damnedest to see it done, ‘kay kid?”

“I don’t…”

“Hydra, or whoever is that girl, misty-what’s-her-name, snuck into your personal computer and you didn’t tell me.” He interrupts, eyebrows raised in a silent challenge to deny it, although his gaze is soft, paternal, when he sets it on you. He motions for you to take the memory card again, and you do, carefully. “She snuck past Friday’s blind spots, which, I admit, is incredible. I assume she wanted to tell you something important.”

“Nothing I didn’t know already.” There’s a slight shake to your voice that you still hate, a subtle clench in your jaw you hope you doesn’t notice as you shake your head.

“Well, she’s neutered out of the net. Also, some of the files she sent were filtered by Friday, and they are right there.” He taps the memory card and smiles your way. Still waiting for the other shoe to drop, you return the smile, slowly.

A beat, and then…

“Thank you, Tony.”

He dismisses your words with a gesture of his hand and walks back to stand behind his desk.

“You’re not working alone, kid. May sound hypocritical from me of all people to say that, but I guess we all change.”

“You changed my sister into a team player. I don’t doubt you, Stark.” You reply with a smirk that the billionaire returns with a small laugh.

“I heard that.” Natasha says through the intercom, and both you and Tony jump at the sound.

“How exactly did you hear that?” Tony demands, and Black Widow laughs on the other side of the line in response.

“I know Friday’s patterns, Tony. Too easy to pin your comms.,” She replies, “’Sides, I wanted to know what my sister was hiding from me.”

“Oh, for fucks sake, Natalia…”

“She really takes being overprotective to the other level, doesn’t she?” Tony teases, prompting you to laugh your assent. “And Barnes chose her little sister to chase after. Brave man, really.”

“Shut up, Stark.” Your sister growls as she disconnects her plug into the office, and although you can practically feel her screams coming at you all the way from the future, you cannot help but smile as you walk out.

__

You had admitted what happened with Kseniya infiltrating your computer to your sister, but you had to swallow past the hurt and deny that Kseniya had told you anything you didn’t know, that she had shown you any of her cards. Because she had, and you were terrified of the day she’d play them all.

But for now, you let yourself be light and enjoy peace, for as long as it lasts. If it’s going to be just the two weeks you have had since you came back from Russia, then so be it. If it’s more, you gladly take it, and thank the universe for the opportunity.

Even if peace means practicing with Wanda and both of your powers, which meant you tried to sneak upon the Scarlet Witch during an exercise you were trying about hardening her reflexes, and were now floating near the ceiling of the training room.

“I would say put me down, but this is fun!” You giggle, the red mist surrounding you strengthening as Wanda moves you a bit, a big smile on her face.

You turn your eyes to the other end of the training room, where Steve is practicing some moves with Bucky. Wanda seems to catch your intent, and you feel yourself floating their way.

“Buck, look!” You exclaim, and the supersoldier turns to you, his eyes widening when he sees you floating a good bunch of feet off the ground.

“Doll-…Wanda, let her down.” He sighs. You can hear Steve trying to muffle a laugh behind his fist, and that only makes your smile bigger.

“Don’t worry, it’s safe! Right, Wan?”

“Depends on what you think ‘safe’ is.” The Sokovian replies, to which you answer with a roll of your eyes.

“C’mon, get down from there.” Bucky insists, eyes on you and a hand reaching up, you think without him meaning for it to.

“You’re going to give this old man a heart attack, Y/N.” Steve quips in, already unwrapping the bandages from around his fists.

“Shut up, punk,” Bucky mutters, “Doll, please get down.”

You narrow your eyes with a smirk on your face,

“Can you catch me?”

There’s a now more teasing edge to your banter with Bucky, now that you have grown past getting to know each other’s basic boundaries. Now, although you always left the choice to have skin on skin contact on him, you were not so hesitant when offering contact to the brunet.  

Actually, for almost two weeks now Bucky has been the one to initiate touch between you, and whether it was the kiss you had shared before the mission or what he told you about the chamber they put him in and how that meant healing according to Nat, that he accepted those things happened to him and not someone else; either way he has stuck close to you, strong arms wrapped around you in the morning and stubble tickling your neck, a hand lingering on your waist as he passed by you on a hallway, an arm over your shoulders when you were resting on the couch with the team.

When Sam mentioned how you had come from Russia with an assassin attached to your hip, hiding a proud smile at the way the former Winter Soldier was opening up to touch and human emotions; Bucky merely rolled his eyes and told him he was just jealous because his soulmate could kick ass more than him.

It was the first time he admitted your bond before you, and based on the way Steve almost made a happy dance on his way out of the kitchen and, you assumed, to snitch on the progress with your sister; it was the first time in front of him to.

Still, conversation had flowed by, and the only remnant of that little admission was the way your heart sped up every time you thought back on it.

So now you defy his worried grey-blue eyes with your own, and when he promises he will catch you when Wanda lets you go, you feel the pull of the girl’s mist disappear from your body.

Bucky catches your fall with both hands around your waist, almost reaching your ribs. He starts to let you down on the floor more carefully but when you let your arms wrap around his neck, he changes his mind and lets your chest press against his, both arms locked around you in a tight embrace.

“Done with the stunts?” He teases, lowering his forehead to yours. The tingling feeling that spreads through your body like a current every time you touch is now expected, but not any less thrilling.

“Probably.”

There’s a beat of silence between you, and in the back of your mind you register Steve leaving the bandages somewhere nearby and Wanda approaching him with a skip in her step. But before you can ponder on what that could be, Bucky steals a soft, chase kiss from your lips and murmurs,

“Wanna do somethin’ tonight?”

“Sure. Do you remember where we ended up on Friends?” You ask, fingers toying with the hair at the back of his neck distractedly.

“The one with the ring. That’s not what I mean though,” He insists, and when you feel his metal hand twitching at your back, combined with the uncertain way his eyes keep traveling over your face; you decide to wait until he finds his words. “Whaddya say about a date, doll?”

The air leaves your lungs in a surprised huff, but before his mind can get ahead of him and wrongly read your reaction, your face brightens up into a big smile and you exclaim your very enthusiastic yes.

__

“Is this her first date in seventy years?”

“No.” You spat at Wanda at the same time your sister replies with a determined ‘ _yes’_.

“I was a teen once, you know. The Voronin’s were wealthy folks. I was their only kid, I got attention.” You brag, fitting the nude stocking over your left leg. Nat rolls her eyes as she lays on your bed next to you.

“Oh, really? That’s so sweet!” Wanda asks, rolling on the bed so she gets closer to you, enthusiasm clear in her voice. “Did you ever fall in love?”

“Considering her dates were ways of her to get information on Hydra and the Winter Soldier, I don’t think so.”

“Natalia!” You finally get done setting the stocking to your right leg and making sure it stays there, and you get up and walk towards the heels.

“I’m sorry, you also pried into what they knew of the Red Room.”

“Don’t be like that, I went steady with a few.” You admonish, fitting into the Mary Janes with ease.

“Yeah, a few sons and daughters of Hydra Officers,” Your sister retorts with a lifted eyebrow. “You are fooling no one.”

Wanda gasps next to you, and you could believe the furrow in her brow is in disappointment, but the smile tugging at her lips gives her away.

“I can’t believe you.” The Sokovian whispers.

“What? They were clueless, and I was determined. I got what I wanted, they…”

“Got what they wanted?”

“No. My…the man that adopted me taught me this shit, Wanda,” You roll your eyes at the disenchanted look on her face when she realizes there are not many juicy details to the story. You continue, “Do you really think I went through my teenage years without knowing how to drop a person unconscious during a date and make a quick getaway?”

“That sure is reasurin’.”

You turn to the door with what you refuse to call a squeal of surprise when you hear Bucky’s voice. He’s standing in the doorway, left shoulder leant on the doorframe.

He’s dressed on simple dark suit pants and a white shirt rolled up to his elbows. Nothing out of the ordinary. Hair combed back, and stubble trimmed. It really shouldn’t make your heart speed up the way it’s doing right now, you ponder.

You approach him with a lifted eyebrow, and run a hand over his shirt-cladded chest.

“You clean up nice, soldier.” You tease, looking at him through your lashes. Bucky takes the hand on his chest and prompts you to step away and twirl in your simple vintage floral dress, which you do, with a light laugh.

“And you look beautiful, doll,” When you turn back to face him directly, your breath hitches at how close he is. You can feel the heat radiating off his body, smell the subtle aftershave he used. He bites his lip in a way that makes you think of the ways you wish you could be the one biting it, and runs his grey-blue eyes over your whole body, “I’m a lucky fella, aren’t I?”

“And I’m an unwilling spectator.” Wanda deadpans from your bed. She startles you enough for you to jump a little as you turn to her. She merely shrugs when you stare at her with narrowed eyes.

Turning to Bucky and laying a kiss on his five-o-clock shadow, you whisper,

“I’m going to finish getting ready and I’ll be right out.”

When you walk into the bathroom and take a look at yourself, you ponder for a second if you have exceeded on the blush, before a quick touch to your cheeks confirms most of your blood has decided to rush to them. There’s a smile on your lips that makes you think of nothing but being drunk on happiness, and the fluttering in your stomach every second that passes by and you get closer to the actual date makes you feel like a teenager again.

You finish touching up your lipstick and walk out of the bathroom.

“Ready!” You exclaim, and ignore Wanda’s disbelieving stare when you actually skip a bit on your way to the supersoldier.

A throat clearing stops you from reaching him though, and you turn to your sister with a confused glare, but her eyes are set on Bucky.

Natalia approaches him with furrowed lips, green eyes scanning his whole attire and posture.

“I’ll have her home early, Natalia.” Bucky murmurs, a smirk pulling at his lips. Your sister stares back, unimpressed, and then lifts an eyebrow and promises,

“I can break your neck without you realizing it, and I know where you sleep. Remember that, Barnes.”

__

It’s a fresh night on New York, not too chilly but devoid of the heaviness in the air that comes with heat. In the restaurant, conversation flew with ease between you, and you took it not as a chance to get to know each other better, because almost four months of being side by side take away the novelty of a first date, but there’s a softness, a teasing edge to the interactions within you that do not fail to bring the giddy excitement to your heart.

Bucky’s telling a story about something that happened in the veterans center as you wait for your order to arrive, one hand playing with yours -something that even as touch between you progressed in these weeks, he didn’t trade for any other sort of contact, you noticed- and when he explains what Dr. Davies told him about his thoughts on you, you interrupt him with a teasing smile,

“You’ve told him about me?”

There’s a certain bashfulness in his demeanor when he lowers his gaze for an instant back to your joined hands and shrugs. But still he replies with a confident smile,

“Of course, I gotta show off my best girl.”

“Oh, I’m your best girl now?” You tease, and he returns your smirk with ease, gaze battling yours again.

“Aren’t you?”

Taking a sip of your wine, you answer, “We’ll see how this date goes, soldier.”

You walk hand in hand with Bucky as you make your way back to the compound, your pace leisured and light, as if you both agreed silently that this night should never end.

He is more at ease than you have ever seen him, he talked to you throughout the whole dinner even though the restaurant was filled with people and loud at times, and now as you walk home, you feel him tense only slightly when something out of the ordinary passes by you. It is one of the best good days he’s had, and the dizzy happiness bubbling within you is proof enough.

Even though you arrive quite early to the compound, you don’t encounter a soul on your way to your room. You have decided to stop calling it Bucky’s room at his insistence that you have spent more nights in it than the one saved as your own. You accepted, and he had silently emptied half his dresser for you. You were moving slow when it came to physical connection, always mindful of the fact that Bucky’s body hadn’t been his own for too many years, mindful of the effects of gentle touch on him, and how he would often feel overwhelmed by it. But on the emotional level, you had never felt closer to anyone. Maybe it was the fact that you were soulmates, that some universal roulette decided to assign you to one another, maybe it was just you two, your shared memories and more importantly, your shared hopes.

There’s a small moment of hesitation when you reach your door, and you turn your back to it, hand on the knob. With a deep breath to inspire your confidence, you look up at Bucky through your lashes and whisper,

“Want to come in, soldier?”

He grins, eyes shining when he closes a little bit more of the distance between you.

“This _is_ my room, babygirl.”

“Fine,” You huff in faux-indignation, reaching up and planting a chaste kiss on his cheek, “I guess it is goodnight then!”

You open the door and step inside, but two strong arms wrapping around you stop you from taking another step ahead. You start breathing a joyful laugh at his antics, but when Bucky’s breath fans over the place where your neck meets your shoulder, you find yourself suppressing a shiver.

Thanking the heavens for having his chest to lean back on when you feel a kiss being mouthed beneath your ear, you turn your head to look at him.

Bucky smiles, but his eyes are hooded, and you can feel the rapid tempo of his heart at your back.

“I never said no, sugar.”

Turning in his arms so that your chest is pressed against his, you reach up to play with his hair, and make a show of wetting your lips when you whisper,

“What are you waiting for, then?”

There’s a moment, a heartbeat that goes by. Your eyes search his, your skin prickles in anticipation when you catch the darkened haze his mind seems to be clouded in.

You bit your lip softly, feeling your heartbeat quicken, and his eyes follow the movement down to your lips.

And then he covers your lips with his, in the sort of kiss you haven’t experienced together since the first one, hesitantly shared on his bed on one of the good mornings. The hesitant kind of kiss, the transcending kind of kiss, the kind that tells you something between you two will never be the same after this.

Your eyes flutter closed and you turn your head to the side, your lips moving seamlessly against one another. His tongue demands an entrance into your mouth that you gladly give, a soft moan escaping your lips at the heady sensation of his breaths combining with your own.

Bucky’s hand travels frantically over your back, as if he couldn’t decide where to touch first. You are intertwined, walking together towards the bed when you break from the kiss, a laugh breathed over his lips.

“Are you trying to find the zipper or lift up my dress?” You whisper with a smirk, a twinge of possessiveness rolling over you as you catch the way your lipstick has stained his own kiss-swollen lips.

“Whatever gets me faster to the part where I peel off those stockings of yours.” His gravelly voice answers, although his mouth is already occupied with your neck, and the words trace your heated skin in a teasing caress.

“Why so impatient, soldier? Enjoy the ride.” You whisper back, arching your back and turning your head to the side.

“That’s gonna be my line,” He laughs against your neck, and you are about to reply to his smart mouth when said mouth bites down on your pulse point, his tongue quickly easing the pain of the bite, prompting electricity to run all over your body, down to the tips of your toes.

A ragged moan of his name leaves your lips like a curse, and Bucky answers with a small groan of his own at the sound, his hips pressing against yours. “ _Shit_ , babydoll…please keep makin’ those little sounds for me.”

Somehow you’ve made it into the bed, the gentle whirring of his metal arm right next to your head, his body pressing against yours in the most delightful way.

His wandering hand finally finds the zipper on the side of your dress, and you can feel the adoring look on your face when he almost giggles when he realizes he has found it.

“Eureka, Buck.”

“Thank you, it was quite the task when you kept distractin’ me with that pretty little mouth’a yours.” He steals another soft kiss to prove his point before breaking apart and pulling down the zipper.

The last item of clothing to disappear is his shirt, which you are more than thankful for, and take your time showing him why he truly shouldn’t hide such a perfect body behind useless clothing anyway.

He keeps his pants, though, and you only take off your dress, aside from the stockings that Bucky so worshipfully slid down your legs, spreading heated kisses over each bit of exposed skin as he did so.

But there’s still a distance to be kept, a gentleness to be reminded of. You both decide not to rush, and although Bucky apologizes unnecessarily for not being ready, you assure him how comfortable you are with the way this is going when you explore every expanse of skin you can reach with hands, lips and tongue, and delight yourself on each and every one of his wavering breaths, muffled curses, or soft moans.

And now your eyes are closed, breathing calm as you focus on taking in the beats of Bucky’s heart. With your hand pressed on his chest, you tap the code for your name with a small smile playing at your lips.

You feel his right hand reach up to you, and try ignoring the nagging thought that he hasn’t touched your skin with the left one yet.

Gentle fingers trace over your own heart, but you know he isn’t searching for a beat. The scar that matches the last time you stood against the Ghost and failed.

It’s an ugly mark that for years has haunted your sister as a proof of her failure to protect you, ragged edges over the bullet wound itself and the leftover traces of the rushed work of the doctors in Ukraine to keep you alive, blemishes be damned when survival is at stake.

If you try, you can still feel the taste of your blood as it fills your lungs and creeps up your throat, hear your sister’s desperate pleas and heartbroken screams as she holds you in her arms. But you don’t want to. The Winter Soldier is dead, as dead as he can be, and the resentment you felt once, the voice that whispered that your own soulmate would’ve killed you without hesitating has long ago been silenced.

“It wasn’t you.” You whisper, without opening your eyes. Bucky sighs,

“I still remember it though. I remember myself doing it. I couldn’t stop, even if I tried, I…”

“I know. But it’s over. They didn’t win.” You assure him, your hand distractedly still keeping track of your name on his heart.

Although, there’s a whisper in the back of your mind that tells you that you have just lied to him,

_The rebirth of the Winter Soldier program is due anytime now, little huntress._

__

You are awaked in the middle of the night by the strange feeling within you, the odd tug towards Bucky you feel sometimes. You open your eyes in the dark to hear his forcefully controlled breathing, to feel his sweaty skin against your own where your hand still rested over his heart.

It takes you a moment to let go of the agony that drowns you for a moment, you do not know if his or your own; but you tell yourself he needs you right now and that is enough to keep your hand from trembling when you carefully remove it from his chest.

You do what you have been doing for weeks now, each time he has a nightmare. Stay in the bed, try to move as little as possible and whisper his name, whatever one you can think of at the moment. You hold your breath and wait for the subtle gasp for air, the hand reaching for you in the impulsive desire to protect you from whatever plagued his dreams.

But he doesn’t wake up.

He doesn’t wake up and your heart breaks at the horrible truth of being forced to watch again without being able to do anything.

The first time you saw Bucky having a nightmare, you reacted as you would have with your sister, you just grabbed a hold on his shoulders and shook him awake.

But whatever his nightmares are made of, it’s not what the rest of the broken people you know relive on their dreams. It’s much worst. So, when you startled him awake that horrible night oh-so-many weeks ago, his first instinct had been to pin you down on the bed, forearm on your throat, hips holding your legs down. Like the day you found your sister crying on the shower, barely a few months out of the Red Room, wet hair plastered to her face and arms wrapped around a trembling body, whispers of names and titles you wished the people that uttered them to her would perish for thinking of; your heart broke and a part of your soul died with him, with the sergeant that died screaming on a facility in Siberia. It hurt, and it still does, because it is in moments like these you realize what Kseniya meant when she said that Bucky’s soul would never be yours again.

They broke him. They utterly, completely, irreparably broke him.

And that night, his eyes were wild, animal, reduced to instinct and fear and pain and anger. And once again, completely devoid of any other emotion but a programmed reaction, an instinct beaten into an unwilling mind.

The Winter Soldier was staring at you, not Bucky.

And you could do nothing else than stare back at the Ghost.

You wore bruises on you neck for a few days, and Bucky wore a tortured expression for way longer. So, you are supposed to stop waking him up.

But his nightmares didn’t stop, so you’ve started working around a solution to wake him up, to help him fight his demons, to keep him from being alone again.

You have tried whispering, you have tried turning up the air conditioning in the room, anything to bring him out of his personal hell slowly but surely. And yet…yet he’s still on his bed, muscles clenched tightly, but without moving, like…like someone is torturing him, really, really slowly.

You want to scream. To scream his name until he comes back, but you know that’s to worst you could do, you know the kind of relapse it would cause. You know it’s one of the things he fears the most. So you bute your lip until it bleeds, and wait it out, with broken whispers and silent prayers.

But after a while it is too much to handle, too tight the grip on your heart, too close your tears to falling. So you move to get out of bed, hoping to get Steve or someone to help him if you fail to do so.

You feel a thread tightening before Bucky even moves.

_Metal arm around your throat, lifts you up. You hit the wall and fall unconscious in seconds._

Rolling out of his reach, you take the handgun form under his bedside table and point it his way as you stand back up, your heartbeat deafining as it rings in your ears.

But his eyes remain closed, and now he curls his body around itself as if to protect him from a damage you cannot see.

The gun falls from your hand, naked feet padding quickly through carpeted floors as you run out of the room. Thankfully, Friday alerted Steve, because you find his half-asleep self walking briskly towards you.

“I’ve got ‘im.” He soothes, hand running down your arm as he walks into the room.

It’s only then that you allow yourself to breathe, your head lulling forward and your shoulders caving under the invisible weight. There’s slender arms wrapped around you, the sharp smell of spices reaching your nose as Wanda’s voice fills your mind.

_He’ll be okay. This is proof of healing, like Natasha told you._

“H-He…we were doing so good, Wan. It was so good. Maybe I pushed him, maybe I shouldn’t ha-…”

_Trust me, I know how our mind betrays us. On one if his best days, he may relive his worst once his last defenses fall. And it is normal._

You shake your head, arms still limp as the Sokovian girl hugs you tightly.

“It still isn’t fair.”

Finally, she speaks, the accent you had missed when you heard her in your head reaching our ears,

“Life usually isn’t. You’ve shown me we can do our best to be happy despite that, Y/N. Don’t let them win.”

When Steve walks out an hour or so later, fists clenched and smile tremulous but eyes light, you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Natasha lets go of the one-armed hug she had you in and walks towards the blond, whispering something you do not care to hear, and bringing him down to her level in a hug when he nods.

Your eyes wander to Wanda when you feel her slender fingers wrapping around your hand and giving it a squeeze. You smile in thanks and when Steve calls your name, you turn to him.

“I’m going to be in the kitchen if you need anythin’. G’night.” He murmurs, and walks past you. Your sister watches him go, and then kisses your forehead gently before following him.

You walk into Bucky’s room, knocking softly as you enter.

“Love, you okay if I come in?” You whisper, and when he mumbles his assent, you enter the room again.

The only proof of whatever transpired is the discarded gun near the foot of the bed, and the sheets and covers tangled in a mess around the man sitting on the center of said bed.

He’s furiously scribbling something down on a small black notebook, tangled hair falling over his face and keeping you from being able to see him, which shouldn’t be something that bothers you as much as it does.

“I’m going to take a shower, call me if you need anything, okay?” You call as you take mismatching underwear from one of the drawers in his dresser and an old shirt he doesn’t wear anymore since you claimed it. He grunts an affirmative response, and you walk into the bathroom.

When you come out, he is still writing on the small notebook, hand clenched tight around the pen and moving tensely, as if the appendage cannot write the words as fast as his brain wants him to.

He finishes whatever he is writing and looks up at you. You see the bloodshot eyes, the bitten lower lip, but you also see the fragile stubbornness of a man that decided to survive, and you cannot help but realize that this quiet strength, this sinuous way his soul will twist and bend but never break, this cautious hope that seems to shine within him, make you fall in love with him every day anew.

“Sorry, I…I wanted to get it out before it was gone.” He says simply, closing the notebook with care.

“You are writing down…memories?” You try, approaching the bed carefully.

“Yes, the doctor suggested it. Said I should put the thoughts somewhere other than my own head,” He shrugs, and motions for the bookshelf, “The story there is not…mine. They didn’t see me as…me, and I am, o-or was.”

You follow his direction and turn to look the way he points, taking in the pile of files you gave him on your first night at the compound, on your first offer of peace. Placed atop of them, you notice, there’s a small white paper crane, that you recognize as the one you folded as you told him if the old legend people used to whisper back in the Union.

There’s nothing that can stop the besotted smile on your lips as you turn back to him.

“That’s a great idea. Writing coming okay?”

“I guess. I’m writin’ it for me, when-… _if_ somethin’ happens and I lose the memories again. So I can read it and remember.” He leaves the notebook on his bedside table and turns to you, grey-blue eyes regarding you with a softness you would not believe a man who has suffered as much as him to be able to possess.  

“You should write down some good memories, then.”

Bucky is nodding before the words are done leaving your lips, a small smile lightening his ragged features.

“I wrote about you, about tonight. About Stevie too, and Natalia.”

You smile although you feel tears clogging you throat, making it difficult to breathe. Now that the worst has passed, now that you watched your whole world tremble but can now rest assured it still stands on solid ground, you cannot help but feel drained, but at the same time filled with this horrible energy you do not know how to let out.

Still, you extend a hand between you, and when Bucky nods, you brush the hair off his face with tender fingers. You are not sure of the contact is for his comfort or your own, but you keep it up as his eyes fall closed and he leans into your touch.

“Why don’t ya-…” Bucky’s eyes open to look at you as he speaks, but soon he stops himself and his previously peaceful expression morphs into concern and a fear you wish he never had to feel again, “You’re crying.”

“Oh,” You reach up with your free hand and notice a trail of tears running down your cheeks, “Didn’t notice. I…I was- I just worry, Bucky, it’s okay.”

You sniff a little, and Bucky takes the hand you still have in his hair and looks up at you with a softness that still astonishes you.

“C’mere.”

He motions for you to lay in his arms, and you do so without a moment hesitation, laying over his lap and hiding your face on his chest. Feeling his steady heartbeat under your ear, the heat of his skin permeating yours, his strong arms wrapped around you, protecting you from what neither of you can see; it helps bring your own heart to a slower beat.

“I’m sorry. I just wish there was something I could do, th-these things happen and I…”

“You are,” He reassures when your voice dies down in a hiccup, “You are doing so much, doll.”

“Doesn’t feel like it. I’m your soulmate, I know that doesn’t fix shit, but I…I just feel so _useless.”_

A soft kiss is pressed o your hair, and you smile a little on the secret of the curve of his neck.

“You’re nothin’ like that, doll. You’ve been helpin’ me more than you realize. Hell, for longer than you realize,” Another kiss, and he brings you closer, maneuvering you so you can both lay under the covers again, “You kept me human, angel. For _so_ long.”

The only response you can give is to burrow further into the safe cocoon of his arms, and rest there, biting your tongue with words unsaid.

_I love you._

After a while where you lose track of time, where you find yourself almost falling back asleep, you drowsily lift your head from where it was hidden on the crook of his neck. The hand holding onto your waist is the right one, and you don’t realize that until you watch his eyes trail the path of your tears down your cheeks and the cheesy intent to dry them hidden in his soft gaze. There’s a hesitance, the desire to keep the metal hand away from gentle touch, from touch skin-on-metal.

But he smiles, and after a beat runs a thumb carefully over your cheek.

“Careful, don’t go rusting on me.”

He shrugs and arranges both of your bodies so you are back in the position you fell asleep in,

“Stark can make a new one.”

__

It’s only two days after the incident that your world shakes again, this time you fear too many things to count were discovered broken after the quake.

Bucky had continued writing on his notebooks, and was actually improving in remembering things from before the war, before Hydra. He kept the ease that had preceded the days before the last nightmare, and you thanked whoever wanted to listen for the fact that the last one was, although the most horrible one you -and Steve- had witnessed him go through, that Bucky had pushed through.

Natalia was laying off missions for a while, and you found her more often than not humming an odd tune as she served herself breakfast, smiling widely after she was done practicing some of the ballet moves she used as training. You felt like your sister was back with you, maybe not the girl from before that horrible day when they took her, maybe not the hardened woman that did the impossible, but a mix between the two: your sister.

A shame all good things end, especially for people like you.

A loud noise wakes you up, and you can only start reaching for the gun on the nightstand before Bucky beats you to it, body thrown over yours and facing the intruder with a raised weapon.

“Steve.” He breathes, and you peek over his shoulder to take in the undone state of Bucky’s friend. The blonde is standing in the middle of the room, and you wonder for a moment if he even knows why he is here, or if the skinny boy from Brooklyn told him to go find his bestfriend on a time like this and he just complied; before his words reach your ears.  

“Natasha is gone.”

You are in a daze as you sit on your sister’s bed, the ghost of Bucky’s comforting touch still tracing over your skin, but it is not enough to chase away the void of having failed the most important person in your life.

A few hours ago, you got a message from Clint, telling you Nat was safe and with the kids. But only a few minutes ago you found the courage to walk into her room, shaking off the fear and dread of seeing what prompted her to run, and found an open file on her computer.

Security footage.

A blonde woman in expensive looking clothes greets a young girl as she walks into the room. She is pointed at a table, and slowly sits down on it, waiting for the other woman to speak.

But then a figure walks out of the shadows.

You don’t see the girl you once were mouth your sister’s name, but you remember that day as if it had happened yesterday, and you know your sister does too.

The blonde doctor straps you to the table, and you see your struggle, but this time your eyes were set on the older sister, the survivor of the Red Room, the Black Widow. You see the tremble in her hand as she reaches for you, a syringe on her free hand as she reaches down and breathes kiss on your forehead.

You watch the woman’s mouth move, and your sister injects the poison into you.

The video shows an unnatural stillness to Natalia’s frame as she watches you convulse on the table, machines going haywire as your body tries to fight the poison trying to stop your heart. The redhead merely looks at the body on the table, a broken sort of relief on her face when the heartbeat finally stops.

They count down the seconds, and the woman motions for Natalia to start the process of restarting your heart. The girl does, with practiced ease and dead eyes.

The video cuts after that. What comes after are pictures of the facility in Belarus, the angles and indications in them showing they were taken as evidence, as a register. Bullet holes in the walls, agents and soldiers flooding the halls and a dozen frightened girls cornered into a room by men in dark uniforms.

There’s a single picture of the Winter Soldier among them. Body slumped on the floor, a couple of wounds tainting his uniform dark red, a piece of paper crumpled in his flesh hand, kept safe within his grasp even in his unconscious state.

Notes on a break on programming, notes on the time and date. The matching ones to the video’s.

Your sister’s voice repeats in your head, and you cover your mouth with your hand as a sob escapes your lips.

_I killed a man’s soulmate, Solnyshka. I took the one thing he was holding on to, I killed whatever was left of his humanity because I was scared._

Hundreds of files, this time ones that weren’t in the video, that Natalia looked for out of her own volition, are opened in different tabs on your sister’s computer.

Some are from prisoners of Hydra, taken to the Red Room and used to harden the girls into approaching cold-hearted execution, others are on Hydra’s targets that needed neutralization, others on people that crossed the Black Widow.

All dead, by your sister’s hand.

You feel the instinctual pull to run from that room, from the pain and the feeling of having failed her. You should’ve been there, you should’ve protected her.

Another sob leaves your mouth, but you try to quieten it as you know Wanda is nearby, and the girl doesn’t deserve any more pain that isn’t her own.

Your phone buzzes, and you pick it up without even seeing the caller id.

“What.”

The disgustingly sweet voice fills your ears, and you feel your heart breaking as she speaks, “Don’t be sleeping on me now, little huntress. Remember what I know, what I can do. Time to make a choice. Your soul or theirs.”

You throw the phone to the wall, tears welling up in your eyes and you let out a scream, torn from your throat in anger, in helplessness, in grief, for the redhead girl with the mischievous streak that was turned into a monster and forced to relive it.

For the man that never got out of that damned facility in Siberia, for the couple that offered a girl a home and tasted nothing but pain before dying, for the kids, the teenagers that never left Hydra’s cold embrace.

For the families broken apart. For the soldiers that never went home.

For who you were, and who you could’ve been. For what _they_ all could’ve been.

But then the anger, the melted steel running through your veins, like that damned serum that convicted you so long ago, turns cold, turns into an inflexible blade. And you straighten your back.

You are done running.

__

You manage to track down her network to a singular location on the third day of your search, around four in the morning, but you shake the sleep off and suit up, sheathing your sister’s knives in the small of your back and one of the rifles Stark gave you for the last mission.

You turn around and ready to sneak off the compound when you feel a thread connecting with yours.

“Yobannoe dno.” You curse under your breath, but turn around either way as you strap the rifle to your back.

“What are you doing?” Bucky asks, voice low as not to make any noise but you can feel the anger radiating off him. When you look into his eyes, your heart clenches at the realization that you are the reason behind the fear and hardness in them.

Still, you refuse to feel guilty for going back for their blood. They deserve it. Nat may not be here to take it herself, and Bucky may be too human to want it; but you do want it, and you will go for it.

They acted like Gods for too long, time to show them that they too, can and will bleed.

“I told you, I’m going after her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t decide on a quote/thought for this chap so there’s two:
> 
> “You touch me and suddenly I feel a little less war-torn. I’m not sure what peace is supposed to feel like but I think it may feel a lot like you.” anatomy-of-rains (via wordsnquotes)
> 
> “You want to know what it was? The moment I knew you were it? It was when I showed you the darkest parts of me, and instead of running away, you rolled out a blanket, laid on your back, and pointed out the stars.” Beau Tapline, Astronome


	13. Chapter 13

“You’re going after the girl.” Bucky states, and you nod, standing your ground.

“I tracked her base of operations. She’s adept at working with technology, but Hydra doesn’t trust big networks since what my sister pulled off last year.

You pull up some data from the small bracelet-like device you ‘borrowed’ from Stark’s vault, the tracking records bringing a little light to the room as they project form the small device into a small hologram. You continue,

“According to my data, the information sent to my sister and to me was taken from a single facility in some lost island in the Indic Ocean.”

On the secondary processor, you run a search for the jet you commanded to come pick you up, but your attention is set on the supersoldier, and you take note of the bitterness in his voice when he answers,

“You know, for pulling off a trick like this by yourself, I would’ve thought you knew what a bait was.”

“I do!” You spit back, turning your gaze from the device tracking the plane and back to his stormy eyes.

Bucky scoffs at you, “Really? ‘Cause I’m not very inclined to believe you right now.”

“Listen, Bucky, I know you’re angry…”

“Don’t. Don’t try to play this off as something I just don’t understand. You are going into the wolf’s den all alone, without telling anyone! What the fuck is going through your head!?” You both ignore the way that his voice falters on the same beat that it rises its volume.

“I am not defenseless, Barnes, nor useless. I may look the part, but…”

“This isn’t about what you are capable of, it’s about what _they_ are.” He interrupts again, his expression that of a man determined. But you’ve promised yourself, and the memory of what once could have been, to take Kseniya’s advantage from her, and once she loses the tricks to her little mind games, to go after her. You are not stopping now, you are not willing to wait another second to see who else she puts on the line, what other games she decides to play.

You do not want to see unfold what will happen if Bucky tries to stop you. You do not want to hurt him, but you will, if it’s between that and letting _them_ hurt him or Natalia again.

“I know exactly what they are capable of, I witnessed their work in detail, for _decades_ ,” Your voice turns back to the hot anger coursing through you, to the desperate need to keep things as they were that you’ve been hiding for days now. “That’s why I want them away from the people I love!”

“Do you think you are the only one with something to lose!? With people they love, with people they need to protect!?”

The fight leaves you, and you sigh, your shoulders dropping as you shake your head. You feel Bucky stay still, frame tense and posture defensive, and your voice is a whisper when you ask,

“Don’t you want this to be over, James?” The use of his name is deliberate, you know, but you continue, “The files burnt, the people responsible dead. Don’t you want to be free of them?”

The man in front of you shakes his head in response, walking closer to you and grabbing a hold of your hand in his, the gentle touch you do not know if it’s supposed to ground you or him.

“Not if it costs us you, doll. That’s a price too high to pay.”

That’s the thing. The price will never be too high for you. You have the chance to give him and your sister peace for the rest of their lives, there is not a speck of you that will hesitate on taking the fall to achieve it.

A small, sad smile curves your lips upwards when you answer, taking a step back and letting his hand hang in between you, as if now bereft of your own it has frozen again in time.

“Well, good thing it is not your choice to make.”

Bucky’s expression hardens, not quite that of the Soldier you faced in Odessa but not quite the kind man you have got to know in these last months.

His jaw clenches and his eyes fall from your own when he growls,

“You’re right. It’s not my choice.” He turns his back to you and you feel a small, lovesick part of you telling you to go after him, to remain one more second in the bubble of the bond between you two. But you force it to quiet down, you bury it under decades-old debts to be paid.

But you see that Bucky does not leave the room. He walks towards one of the compartments in the armory and takes the utility vest Stark made for him months ago as he goes, shrugging it over his Henley. Taking out a rifle, alongside a couple of small handguns, he straps them on.

“What are you doing?” You whisper, dumbfounded. The soldier turns to you as he grabs some ammo and saves it in the designed pockets of his vest.

“I’m coming with. I’ll be damned if I let something happen to you when I was not there.” His voice is certain, his words carved in stone, as if the decision should be clear as day for you to see.

But you cannot be the reason he’s thrown back into battle, into a war he has tried to avoid for as long as he has been free of Hydra, maybe since even a time before that. You cannot be the reason he goes back to hell, not when you are doing this to keep the demons from reaching him.

“You don’t have to protect me.” You murmur, feet nailed in place. He shrugs in response.

“I know I don’t. I’m gonna anyways. Choose to.” The defiance in his voice, the glint in his eye when he gives your words back to you remind you of the sergeant that looked after the skinny boy in southern Brooklyn.

A small sound from the device in your wrist lets you know the plane has arrived, interrupting the small battle of wills that was taking place between you and your soulmate. Bucky’s stormy eyes go to the small device, and he once again extends a hand between you.

“Trust me?” He asks, and suddenly you are back in the training room on one of those first weeks in the compound, your hand waiting for his sign of trust, of maybe something else.

You let your gloved hand rest on his, and his fingers close over it, tugging you closer.

“You are not cleared for duty.” You still try, a teasing smile on your lips.

“As long as you don’t go around snitching me to Steve, we are all good.”

__

You close your eyes, trying to calm your rapidly beating heart and keeping your sister’s broken gaze in your mind, keeping it to the front of your mind so that you don’t let go of the rage fueling you. The same rage that, since a pale day in Seversk when they took your sister from you, like a dying flame, has been kept alive by pain and sheer stubbornness, refusing to die out.

Because that is one of the things they don’t tell you when people speak of pain. The anger that comes with it, the desire to see the world _burn_. So what if an eye for an eye leaves the world blind? Better to keep ‘em from seeing what you hold close, what becomes your weakness.

Or maybe it was just you, maybe it was just the blood on your veins, the name on your heart, that made you so filled with fury. Maybe it was the same story to each and every one of the survivor’s of Hydra’s chaos. Maybe it was the same story to everyone that saw someone lose themselves to the darkness without being able to do a damn thing.

You find yourself toying with the fingerless glove around your left hand, the one Bucky gave you and you put on before departing from the tower, shooting him a smile and telling him something about how it would bring you good luck; eyes open again but set on nothingness, and you ponder if this coldness was what filled Natalia when she chased after the Winter Soldier for years on end, trying to make him pay for the sin of daring to hurt the one thing she had vowed to protect.

“This is well defended, doll,” Bucky starts from near the cockpit, prompting you to stand up and walk towards him. “We should’ve brought back up.”

“The agents would’ve alerted her we were coming. They are running on Stark’s blindspots, and we cannot afford for her to know beforehand what is going to happen.”

He shakes his head, gray-blue eyes set on the monitors, “Still, this is dangerous.”

“I know. But I need you to _trust me,_ ” You state, walking even closer. You rest a hand on the center of his back, and feel his torso expand with a deep breath. “Besides, we are going to be fine.”

Bucky turns to look at you impassively, one eyebrow slightly lifted.

“We are!” You insist, a small smile on your lips, “Retrieval of information, I’ve done it thousands of times. Easy-peasy.”

“You haven’t retrieved from a Hydra facility.” There’s still the foreboding seriousness in his voice, that you refuse to acknowledge, because that means something could go wrong, that means there’s the possibility of not going home in one piece, and you refuse to believe that.

So, you cock your head to the side and ask,

“Do you really want the answer to that?”

That manages to get one of those breathy laughs out of him.

“No, not really.”

__

Bucky walks close to you, rifle raised and looking for threats as he moves from one side of you to the other. Your eyes are set on the small device on your wrist, tracking the data node of the facility.

Letting your partner know there are another four soldiers inside the next room, where the node supposedly is, you walk inside, taking precise shots to have the soldiers drop down. The farthest two drop down with a shot in the kneecap, and you grab the one closest to the door, forcing his face down to your raised knee, leaving him stunned for long enough to twist his body over yours and use as a shield as the remaining agent tries shooting you on sight. Another quick round on the man’s arm and leg, and he too falls down.

The place looks like some sort of experiment office. Several pieces of old laboratory equipment are scattered around, a couple of desks but otherwise a big room with glass windows surrounding it. You don’t want to guess the kind of things that went on in this place.

“Seeing you do that shouldn’t be workin’ for me right now, should it?” Bucky mumbles as you approach the main computer in the big office.

You laugh, a little louder than you should, but his words surprise you too much to worry about stealth now.

“Taking down Hydra agents? Really, Bucky?”

“I think you being the one doin’ it is a key factor, doll.” He answers, shrugging, although you can see a mischievous smile teasing at his lips.

Rolling your eyes in response, you take your attention back to the computer that is now done turning on. Several sheets of codes and data you cannot decipher roll past your eyes in the monitor.

“What is it?” Bucky asks, approaching you and looking over your shoulder.

“It’s encrypted. I found this kind of code locking data in when I was searching for information on me and…well, and you, in those months after Washington. I thought the data was corrupted somehow, but…”

“Too much of a coincidence.” Bucky finishes for you, and you nod.

Readying the device on your wrist to run a scan and see if this is truly the node, you straighten your back, narrowly missing the small disk with what you assume to be a copycat widow-bite thrown at you.

“You cannot make this easy, can you?” Kseniya teases as she walks into the room

Over twenty soldiers break into the room after her, entering through the windows and the main door but never shooting. Either way, this is enough to prompt Bucky to move so that he covers your body with his own, rifle raised and aimed at the ones at your back, while you face the blonde girl with a narrowed gaze.

“Well, it wouldn’t be fun if I just gave up, would it?”

She refuses to keep up the facade, expression hardening as she takes you and Bucky in.

“You are not here to finally join us, though. What do you want, girl?”

“What tells you I’m not here because I missed you?”

Kseniya smiles, as if truly charmed, but ignores your words, “The last files on your sister and your plaything finally erased, is that it?”

“Maybe.”

“Bait. I told you.” Bucky growls, metal hand closing around your thigh and moving you a little to the left as one of the soldiers in front of him tries circling to get a clear shot of you.

The blonde girl calls her soldier back to attention, calling a couple of them closer to her and smirking your way.

“You think the data was in a computer, girl? Rookie mistake. Go on, Soldat, tell her how Hydra keeps backups,” Bucky doesn’t answer at first, eyes set on the soldiers around you. Finally, without turning his gaze to you, he states,

“In case the evidence needs to be erased, Hydra has a backup plan. They programmed eidetic memory into a part of my brain. When they say the words, all that happens until I am done with the mission is…salvageable.”

You turn your eyes away from his profile and back to the blonde a few feet in front of you, “All the data encryption, it was…”

“Inside my head? Always.” Kseniya smiles crookedly, and the bitter sting of horror runs through your blood like poison.

You never tried to think of all the failed subjects on the original Winter Soldier program, understood that their fate had been infinitely better than Bucky’s at the end of the day. You did not think of the ones that escaped, the ones that went home. The ones like you, that were resourceful, or lucky, enough to keep themselves out of Hydra’s cold grasp.

But now as a few surviving and crazed followers try to bring back a program dead decades ago, not with the supersoldier serum but with scattered remains of Hydra’s control of the Union, of the underworld; you have to face the fact that you are one of the lucky ones, and you could be standing on Kseniya’s side, were the circumstances a little different.

“Kseniya, what did they do to you?” You cannot mask the horror in your voice, the images of Bucky’s body strapped to that horrible machine, the maddening absence of everything he felt within those chambers, running through your head.

You had thought Kseniya was an attempt at the Winter Soldier’s Program rebirth, you never imagined she was proof of its success.

And the blonde merely smiles, as delighted as a child. But there’s a manic, a dangerous edge to her expression, that makes you guarded.

“What we will do with you, once you agree. Only you will be better, I am only a backup, sweet thing.”

“No, that’s not…You are not their weapon.”

That surely changes her demeanor. The girl stands straighter, expression turned back into a stony glance, eyebrow raised.

“Don’t try that on me, girl. I am not in need of saving. Don’t you understand what Hydra choosing us means? Can you even understand the privilege it is to serve Hy-…”

“Oh, shut up.” Bucky snarls, finally pressing the trigger and dropping three of Kseniya’s men to the ground before they start shooting back at you and the former Winter Soldier.

You notice the soldiers around you vanish before bullets can strike them, disappearing in a puff of dark smoke like Kseniya did on that sunny day in Croatia so many months ago.

Bucky’s metal arm closes around you, covering you from the fire as much as possible as he guides you both to take cover behind one of the machines. You curse with a snarl, breath ragged as you reload the rifle but aware shooting another round into them will do no good but to stall them if that.

“She’s helping them.” Bucky states next to you, rising above the small piece of metal keeping you both safe and shooting uselessly a few rounds into one of the approaching soldiers with the electric batons.

You nod distractedly, and pay attention to one of the corners of the room where Kseniya’s form flickers in and out of existence, her gaze set on the two soldiers that try going for you from your back, but are quickly disrupted by Bucky’s calculated shot as he moves over you and strikes one of them in the kneecap. In the few minutes since the ambush, he has managed to track down Kseniya’s powers, you don’t know if visually or paying attention to the soldiers’ movies, but he can tell which ones are covered by her mist and which ones are not.

It still won’t be enough to beat them. Beat _her_.

“Buck, I need to get closer to her.”

“What ?”

“If I push her into close quarters, her attention will be on her own survival, take the edge of the agents,” You explain, turning your gaze back to him. His eyes are traveling over the room, taking note of the soldiers that are changing their simple weapons for more potent rifles on one corner of the room, the one covering Kseniya, the one under cover at your six. When he starts shaking his head, you grab a hold of his arm, prompting him to finally look at you, “You promised to trust me. _Trust_ me. Please.”

Bucky clenches his jaw, hard eyes set on yours, and as you keep your gaze on his and fast instants bleed into one another, you see the softness enter his eyes, a hint of the fear and hesitation. But also a hint of pride, and of certainty.

And he nods.

You motion with your head to show him the path you will take to get to the girl, and your soulmate agrees with you with a silent move of his head and a hand gesture.

When you unsheathe your knives and are about to move, he grabs your arm gently.

“You better come back to me.”

A smile teases at your lips, but your eyes are already on the blond girl on the other side of the room.

“Always.”

You move quietly and take cover next to one of the sturdy looking desks, a little closer to Kseniya, but keeping your eyes on her you miss the soldier at your back.

_Knife pierces your back. Lung damage._

Dodging the soldier’s stab, you grab his forearm and slice swiftly on the inside of his elbow, making him drop his weapon and scream in pain. You let go of your sister’s knife to grab the handgun, unloading two quick shots on his shoulder and dropping him to the ground, still conscious but in too much pain to move.

“Aww, c’mon girl. Not even one kill?” Kseniya teases form the other side of the room, and you grind your teeth together. A silent approach is out of the picture.

You are forced to take full cover as a multitude of bullets fly past you, and the blonde continues,

“And here I thought you were a true Romanova.”

“And here I thought you were going to shut up.” Bucky yells from the other side of the room, bringing a loud, nervous laugh out of you.

You close your left hand on a tight fist, closing your energy around his. There’s a strange tendril pulling at him, one that you quickly recognize as the move you taught him with your sister. If you were blinded, which you are because you cannot see past your cover, Bucky could show you his intention of action, and you could see it when your powers focus on him.

You bite your tongue, reminding yourself not to be a hypocrite when you feel his intention to draw fire towards him, prompting Kseniya’s man to be uncovered by her powers and allowing you to easily take him down.

Bucky moves at the same time you do, him stalking towards the two men at his ten and you continuing your path towards the girl.

As planned, when the two soldiers fall quickly, needing only a few moves from Bucky to take them down hand to hand, the man guarding Kseniya is left unprotected by his boss.

You run your legs under him, bringing him down and letting your knives find a home on his shoulders, the electrical current quickly bringing him down. As you are about to turn, a sharp pain extends through your side, but you don’t have time to ponder on it as Kseniya quickly lifts her leg and swiftly lands a kick on your side, sending to the floor a few feet away.

A scream of your name is torn out of Bucky’s throat when you fall, but Kseniya’s mocking laugh eclipses whatever reassurance you were about to yell back.

“You are already so weak for her, so terrified to lose her. Pathetic.”

You ignore the pain on your ribs as you stand up and stalk towards the girl, knives ready at your hands and your powers focusing on her and her energy.

Moving before she can strike again, you walk closer but raise your gun instead of using the knives, and watch as she vanishes in thin air in a puff of mist.

_Presence at your back, a knife slices through the back of your knees, another presses on your throat before you can completely fall to the ground._

Hiding a smile, you wait for the dull sound of Kseniya moving behind you, moving out of her way when she tries to strike. Dropping the gun to the floor carelessly, you turn and land a few hits on her before you turn on the electrical knife.

The blonde is forced to back down as you continue moving, your left arm blocking her strikes before she can even move and your right holding your sister’s knife as cut by cut, drop by drop you start getting the upper ground.

“Even ghosts get predictable, even they bleed, Kseniya. Even the best falls to a huntress. Thought you’d know.” You tease, smile on your lips as you move ahead. She growls in response, lifting her knee and landing a kick on your stomach that robs you of breath before moving forward.

_Hand at your arm, blade on your wrist. The knife falls, pain spreads. A hand holds onto your hair and forces your face into a knee, dropping you unconscious._

Her arm is stretched before you, trying to get a hold of your wrist and force you to drop your knife. You block her attack with your forearm, but she pushes on trying to close the edge of her knife on the tendons in your wrist, rendering it useless and leaving you in disadvantage.

A smirk teases your lips when you drop the knife, catching it with the other hand and letting it find a home in the blonde’s shoulder.

Kseniya screams in pain, body trembling as the electrical current runs through her, but grabs a hold of your wrist with her free hand and looks into your eyes.

“Your sister’s knives, your lover boy’s moves. Anything of who you are is yours, dolly?” She growls, falling backwards as you pull out the knife with a shove.

“My resolve to see you bleed.” You snarl back, taking her hand from you and twisting her arm on her back, knife piercing her skin on her thigh where you stab it, prompting another pained sound from the girl and stopping in the act her attempt to use her powers to vanish when the mild electricity spreads through her body.

You hold her to you, taking the blade off her leg and teasing the skin at her throat.

A small drop of blood, you do not know if from a new wound at her throat or the remaining blood from her leg, trails down Kseniya’s skin, putting a smile on your face.

“And turns out you _do_ bleed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the last chap had a quote and not a random thought, I’m going for random thought now: I always headcannoned that Bucky keeps quipping and talking during missions, even bad ones. I think it would be a way for him to deal with the fact that he’s thrown back into battle, but being able to annoy the fuck out of everyone would be a way to remind himself that his days with Hydra are long gone. Idk.


	14. Chapter 14

“You have gotten good, girl.” Kseniya smiles, but your eyes are already traveling the room trying to find Bucky. More than a dozen soldiers lay on the floor, most of them unconscious, the ones awake hiding grimaces of pain. The dark haired man is rapidly crossing the space between the place where you hold Kseniya and himself, rifle resting on his shoulder as he grips it with only one hand.

“You okay?” You ask, to which he nods quickly, prompting you to return the gesture when his eyes ask you the question his lips cannot. When Kseniya opens her mouth you press the blade tighter against her skin, but she still speaks, voice mocking, teasing, 

“So caring, Y/N. The Colonel will have a field day turning that protectiveness into our favor.”

“Just give me the code.” You snarl, motioning for Bucky to approach the small portable computer Kseniya had kept close to her this whole time. The girl grunts her agreement, and spells out a code for Bucky to enter, granting him de-encryption of the files.

A few beats of silence and then,

“You tried finding my soulmate, didn’t you?” The blonde teases, smiling and showing off bloodied teeth. You do not answer, eyes set on the metal and flesh fingers moving alike over the keyboard, but Kseniya barks a raspy laugh and continues either way, “You wouldn’t find her anyway. I killed her myself.

You hold back the gasp in your throat, focus on rearranging the grip on your knife and try to block the girl’s voice out. But she keeps talking, a broken, manic edge to her voice that frankly scares you.

“You know what that’s like, don’t you, _James_?” She laughs again, her head lulling back a bit and silver eyes focused on your soldier. “The squelching feeling that someone just ripped off half of you? Yeah, I still remember that. Do you? The weight pushing on your heart, like it doesn’t want to beat anymore? The guilt, burning you from the inside because you just ended the life of the one you were supposed to love, the one you were supposed to protect?”

“I didn’t kill Y/N.” Bucky bits out, brow furrowed and blinking harshly a couple of times. Still, he pretends his attention is still on the computer, even as his metal hand clenches and unclenches several times, like you have seen him do when he is on edge.

You know, somewhere within you, that you should act, keep Kseniya quiet and end whatever sick game she keeps trying to play; but you are almost entranced in her words, a dull sort of dizziness settling over you as her words reach you.

“Who are you trying to convince, soldier? You felt her die once, you shot her once too. What’s so distant about those two memories, when you and I both know you will end up with her blood on your hands too?”

You try shaking your head, trying to stay in this moment, in the present but your ears are ringing and your head hurts with the weight of what you know now to be another memory trying to resurface in your consciousness.

“No, I won’t!” Bucky shouts, standing up but instead of walking towards you and the blonde, he backs a few steps away, like a cornered animal. His shoulders rise and fall rapidly, hands clenched at his sides and eyes those of a lost child.

Kseniya shakes her head, laughing brokenly again,

“I said that too, before. But I had to do it. She was too good, too _soft_ ,” She closes her eyes, swallowing against the knife and prompting a small rivet of blood to start falling down her neck to her combat suit. Her voice is almost dreamlike when she continues, “… _so_ soft around the edges, I just saw her and I knew…I knew I was going to lose her.

The girl smiles almost sympathetically as she looks at Bucky.

“Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? Killers, monsters, people like us? We don’t deserve people like them. The universe will not let you keep her, and you know it. You should let her go now, save both of you the pain.

A gasp leaves your lips as pain takes over, splitting your head in two and causing tears to rise in your eyes. You stumble back, eyes shut closed, but either way you hear the words as they are uttered by Kseniya…or is it Karpov?

“Accept it, soldier, you are not going to be able to protect her at the end.”

__

 _It’s been days. You wander the streets, pondering if the serum in your veins has finally driven you insane. Because what you have seen them do, what you have seen him_ survive _; is something that should’ve killed him long ago.  
_

_Your breath becomes irregular, odd stares accompany you as you stumble to an alleyway, resting your arms in the cold stone and praying it will stop before you finally lose your mind._

_You see shadows, and in the shadows the outline of a body, hanging from his wrists, kneeling on the floor, head hanging limply._

_“I can smell the thirst for blood in you, son.”_

_Muscles fighting against exhaustion, blood running down, dripping into the floor as angry skin surrounding metal is traced again and again with a burning knife._

_“Look at you, your whole body was made for war.”_

_Eyes open but that do not longer see, nothingness falling upon the face of what once had been a man._

_“You are destined to end her, and yet you search for her?”_

_You wake up in the middle of the night, your heartbeat echoing in your ears, a bitter reminder of your failure to save the one whose name it spells. You close your eyes against the pain and the life not your own flashing through your head._

_At this point you just hope for it to end, you cannot stand the weeks of feeling them tearing him apart from the inside, piece by piece. The feeling of not being enough, of being too weak fills you as you realize you beg for the reprieve of death before he does.  
_

_A tall body standing before the broken form of a man forgotten by the world, left to rot in a cold prison somewhere as cold as winter itself._

_Lips repeating a single name, a tenacious plea to keep the demons from winning._

_“You are weaker than I thought. You tell yourself you can protect her, and yet you call her name when you die.”_

_And letters you know too well are craved in iron, now the piece looking a terrifying amber color._

_“I’m just making you stronger, son. You must lose her, for the sake of Hydra.”_

_An empty cell, a body dropped to the ground, no longer upright when the chains are let loose, and the pungent smell of burnt flesh filling the dark room._

_“You are not strong enough to save her.”_

_Aftershocks of a firebrand run in the shape of uncontrollable trembling, heavy steps approaching in the darkness._

_“She too far gone for you.”_

_You are tired, dragged down, your mind beaten when you find the name. When anger courses through you and you track down your first heartbeat. Colonel Vasily Karpov._

____

You come back to yourself when you feel a sharp pain on your cheek, body stumbling to the side with the force of the hit.

Kseniya stands in front of you, your knife on her hand and manic eyes set on you, and when you raise your hand to your face, you wince at the sting of touch on the open cut on your cheekbone.

Shaking your head to get rid of the cobwebs, trying to clear your thoughts and focus on the present, you turn your gaze to the girl.

“It is useless to fight back, dolly. Isn’t that right, Soldat?” She starts turning towards Bucky, but her eyes quickly lose the confident façade to them as the Winter Soldier charges towards her. She tries backing away, but that means getting closer to you, so she tries standing her ground.

Bucky disarms her in two moves, closing his left hand around her throat and lifting her up. Kseniya tries using her legs to lift herself and switch the technique against him, but her injury stops her from being able to put strength behind her move.

“Go ahead, snap my neck. Karpov will have her at the end.” Kseniya rasps out, even as her hands are fighting instinctually over the soldier’s bionic grip on her throat.

For a second too long, you fear Bucky isn’t going to let her go, but she falls to the ground before you can even blink, and the girl rasps out a laugh as she lays on the ground, eyes open and facing the ceiling.

You cannot take your eyes off her, of the broken puppet now lying on the floor of the facility she once controlled, and all it took was prompting a few words out of her, all it took was putting her in a position where her mind games wouldn’t work and she bit her own tail like a starving snake, poisoning herself from the inside out.

Bucky reaches your side, hands going over your ribs and checking for injuries. On the back of your mind you hear his voice, rushed questions and murmured terms of endearment but you cannot take your eyes off the girl.

Is this what you were destined to become? Is this what would have happened to you, had you not escaped the facility in Russia all those decades ago?

Is this what they tried to make out of Bucky? What they want to make out of you?

A sharp pain spreads through your side, and you lower your gaze to see Bucky’s right hand retracting quickly from the cut over your ribs, hand clenching in itself as he sees our blood staining his fingers for the first time.

It is in a daze that you lift your gaze to face him, not really knowing what you will see once you do. The Soldat, looking back at you with a dead stare? Bucky, jagged edges and missing pieces?

Or the man that Krapov tortured for weeks on end, for a crime you do not know, using your name as a taunt?

Is there any difference between them? Are they truly so distant, so apart from one another?

But then you reach the fascinating grey-blue of his eyes, and you realize he is none and all of those men, and you remember you love him despite, or maybe even because, of all that.

Reaching the computer, you watch as the files are erased, one by one, and relief washes over you, prompting you to let your back rest lightly on Bucky’s chest, his arms wrapping around you and the hard press of the handgun he still holds strangely comforting at your lower back.

You look up at him with a small, disbelieving smile on your face, a silent laugh leaving your lips as you whisper,

“We…won. It’s over.”

He returns your smile dutifully, bending down to press his forehead against yours. Your heart soars in your chest at the small gesture, because whether Bucky did in on purpose or not, he is standing in a Hydra base standing victorious and not fearful of showing one of his weakness, not hesitating to show his humanity before the ones that tried to stomp and extinguish it for years on end.

Letting your eyes fall closed, you breathe in the lingering smell of gunpowder and the earthy scent that you can identify with nothing but _him_ , and feel your heartbeat settle.

“Told you we’d be fine.”

A voice behind you stops Bucky in his tracks, whatever he was going to answer with forgotten as the girl’s voice drowns the happiness of victory within you.

“I had to do it, I had to kill her, Y/N. For the sake of Hydra, you know sins are pardoned, right? You more than anyone understand.” Kseniya still lies on the floor, and if you didn’t know any better you would think there are tears brimming in her clear eyes.

“I was never on Hydra’s side.” You answer quickly, ignoring your partner’s worried gaze as you flinch in pain at the wound on your side when you turn your gaze to the device in your wrist, trying to reach the quinjet to communicate and ask for extraction.

The girl starts sitting up, your attention turned to her when Bucky raises his gun at her carefully, the gentle whirring of the metal arm calling you to attention.

Kseniya insists, voice broken but keen,

“But you will be with Hydra soon! You just have to give in, let go and you’ll see what it feels like, to let someone else take control, press the trigger.”

Her words make Bucky wince, disgust marring his face as he turns from you to the girl. Still, he doesn’t relinquish his hold on you, for which you are more than grateful.

“Kseniya…” You try, but she interrupts you. You are not sure she even hears you anymore.

“You are stronger than me, you don’t have to kill your soldier. The Colonel will let you leave him alive. You just have to agree.

She shakes her head, eyes set on you almost pleading with you to agree, to follow her manic train of thought and see the truth behind her ways.

“We can change the world, we can…we can do so much, if you just join us! I’m not…I know what I’m talking about, Hydra didn’t break me, and they won’t break you, not if you don’t make them.

She stands up on shaky legs, taking a step towards you but both yours and Bucky’s reactions make her stop on her tracks.

“You have to come with me, you…just listen, okay? You come with, and I-I’ll leave him and your sister alone, deal? We can put this behind us. Can you imagine what we will achieve? No one will be able to stop us.”

You pull up the communications network on the device in your wrist, and try ignoring her broken posture, her scared eyes, “Stark’s team will be here in no time. It’s over.”

“No! I won’t let you end this now, we are so close, Y/N!” She spits back, and you notice her constant use of your name, filing it into the back of your mind.

Before you can answer, the dull whirring sound of Bucky’s metal arm echoes through the room, and you turn your eyes to the man besides you. His mouth is twisted in a snarl, body coiled up and eyes set on the blonde with a mixture of disgust and fury.

“You are close to nothing. Karpov will have her over my dead body,” Bucky growls, voice cold and detached, although neither of you miss the heat behind his words, the promise to let go of the commanding façade and kill her himself in the second the girl tries anything. “Go home and tell him that.”

“Oh, but I can’t.” She purrs. Kseniya’s change in demeanor unsettles you, but you hide it behind a mask of detached attention as you watch her.

She starts backing away from you, and uses the small device on her wrist to type something there. Both you and Bucky ready your guns at her, but she shakes her head as if she were scolding rebellious children.

“I’m not doing anything. Yet,” The confident, mind-twisting Kseniya takes over the broken girl in the blink of an eye, making acid churn your insides. She turns to you and stands her ground as she talks, “You more than anyone know how easy it is to track a heartbeat, don’t you? Especially when I put a name to match that beating heart of yours.”

“I have no heartbeat.” You argue, lifting your chin but keeping a safe grip on the gun in case she moves.

“Oh, but you do. It doesn’t spell anything, but you have one.”

Although your resolve crumbles, and you fear you are walking right into her trap, you still argue, with as much confidence as you can muster, “There’s no record of it.”

“Stark’s suits read your vitals, don’t they?” Realization falls upon you, forcing a gasp out of your throat. The mask falls and the blonde knows she has won. The girl smiles widely. “Exactly. Time to make a choice, little Romanova.”

“What are you talking about?”

She smirks, “Mission report, October 2nd, 2009. Odessa, Ukraine.”

Horror spreads through you. You remember that date. That was the day you lost your sister, the day Hydra’s Ghost became a very real threat to you, the day the Asset almost killed you.

Looking back at Bucky, you try catching his eyes, but his attention is focused on the girl, expression carefully devoid of any emotion. Your heart beats painfully fast against your sternum as you wait to see whether he will answer Kseniya’s request.

But he remains silent, one eyebrow slightly lifted as if to show the girl he is just waiting for the next move. Her smile gets even wider, and she starts talking again with frightening ease. It is like hearing someone recite something engraved in their memory, like their name, their identification, their heartbeat.

“Target’s driven off the road, possible fatality in the accident. Closer inspection shows Romanova is still alive, but so is the target. The agents approach first. The pair make quick work on them. The Asset is sent in.” Kseniya turns her gaze from Bucky to you, and says, “The information is still all in my head, sweetheart.”

You aim your handgun at her head, taking a step back away from Bucky and working past the pain on your side and the migraine you can feel starting from the quick passage into your memories as you stand your ground.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.” You state, eyes narrowed and safety of the gun clicked off.

“If my heart stops, my name is set on your heartbeat, and Hydra will easily track us down. It is as if we were soulmates, isn’t it?” A hint of the unhinged girl slips through, but in what seems like a second, the calculating, manipulative smile is back on place. “You die with me if you pull the trigger, love. Isn’t that how it works, how it feels, soldier?”

But Bucky’s attention is not on her, but on you.

“Doll, _don’t_ ,” He pleads, lowering his gun and reaching for you with his right hand, tracing your side with more care that you would’ve thought him capable of. But you cannot answer, you cannot take your eyes off Kseniya, nor your finger off the trigger. His voice breaks and your heart with it when he insists, “Y/N, _please._ Not for me.”

“So, make a choice, little Romanova. Like I told you before, your life or theirs. Pull the trigger and the world will know where you are hiding, _Hydra_ will know where you are hiding. Let me go, and you live to see another day.”

“I thought you wanted me to go with you.” You try, but you are not here, you are staring down the cliff in where you stand, wondering the choices before you.

“I know when I am beaten. Tick tock, girl.” There’s a confidence to her stance, a cockiness that tells you the girl is ready to walk out of this place. You are not so sure of that.

You told yourself you would take the fall if needed, you told yourself that even your life wasn’t a price too high to pay for Bucky’s and Natalia’s peace. And you haven’t changed your mind, even as your finger teases the trigger and your life, your _name_ , hangs in the balance…you haven’t changed your mind.

And you pull the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chap is a quote: “She won’t break you like those other girls will. That’s exactly why you’re terrified of her. She could make you happy. And you know being happy is the most terrifying thing in the universe. Once you’re happy, it can be taken from you.” Am I referring to Kseniya? Bucky? Myself? Who the fuck knows, I’m here just to make you guys suffer.


	15. Chapter 15

Once the door is closed behind you, you check the lock and steal a glance at the hidden gun stash near the end table as you shrug off the jacket and take off the blonde wig, tossing it somewhere in the room.

The nano-technology mask comes off afterwards, the odd texture of the material making you pull a face as you take it off, happy to have your face be your own again.

Back to running again. Back to looking over your shoulder, jumping at shadows, trusting no one.

Anger courses through you at the thought that even though it feels like everything has changed in this last year or so since Washington, things seem to remain the same, you are running away again. Maybe running is in your blood. Running from your family home when the soldiers in the dark uniforms took Natalia, running from the couple that gave you a home when the chance at revenge was near, running from your powers, your name, for over fifty years.

“I can’t believe you could do something this stupid. Are you serious?”

“No, I did this for the laughs, Nat. Figured taking Kseniya out of the picture would make things boring, wanted to have her Handler at my back too. I get a kick from people trying to kill me, y’know.” You bitterly answer, rolling your eyes as you talk through the phone.

“It would explain why you have the hots for Barnes.” She replies, sly tone letting you sense the smile through her voice, pulling your lips upwards at her teasing. God, you miss her.

“Are you blaming me?”

“No, I have eyes,” You laugh a bit with her, but after a few seconds, the light atmosphere dies down and you are once again reminded of the miles within you, the monsters on your track, the name over your heartbeat. Natalia’s voice is merely a whisper when she states, “I don’t want to say goodbye again, Solnyshka.”

“You won’t have to.”

Your sister sighs in response, but doesn’t say anything else. So, you continue,

“Listen to me, I know things sound bad right now, but I promise, I’m going to come home soon, okay? I just need to get to Elena, have her play a trick on the data I have on my office in Moscow. I’ll solve this.”

“Stark can do it from here, you can _come home_ _now_.”

You shake your head, pinching the bridge of your nose between your thumb and your index finger as you try making her understand. “I can’t risk it. This is Hydra we are talking about. Do you really believe they care for subtlety now?”

“We can hold them off.” The stubbornness, the cutting edge of the Black Widow shines through your sister’s voice, but you still argue back,

“You won’t have to. This will be over soon. I won’t be running forever.”

The last words to leave your lips are a promise to yourself as much as they are to her. You refuse to let Karpov, Kseniya, _Hydra_ , win again.

“Solnyshka…”

“Nat, _sestra_ , listen to me. I am alright, and I will be home in no time. I am safe here, and I will be careful.”

She grumbles something that sounds like agreement, and the conversations goes to her trip to the west of the US and her reunion with Laura and the kids. She gushes over little Nathaniel, forgetting for a few minutes the distance between you, the demons that toyed with her mind and forced her to run away, the same ones that are coming after you because you deny them control over yours.

You stifle a yawn, and of course your sister notices,

“Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“I wanna stay up,” You argue childishly, stretching on the bed. After a beat, you add, quietly, as if not to shatter the precarious reality you and your soldier have been living in for almost a month since Kseniya was…terminated, “Bucky and I are leaving Vienna tomorrow.”

“Where is he, anyways?”

“He went grocery shopping.”

“And I wasn’t there to see it?” She teases, and your smile gets even bigger when you add,

“It get’s better. He’s cooking tonight.”

“Aw, c’mon, Solnyshka! The best things happen when you are in some old creek in Austria!? Not fair.” She whines, a breathy laugh following her words and you her the creaking sound of her bed as she presumably throws herself on it.

“I’ll talk him into cooking for the team when we get back. He’s taken a liking for it.”

“Considering it’s either learning to cook or dying from poisoning with your cooking, I’m not surprised at the outcome.”

“Oh, shut up. Point is, he should be back any time now.” You mumble, standing up and walking through the room, stealing a glance to the door to see if its properly locked before continuing your conversation with your sister.

“How is it no one has noticed the Winter Soldier casually walking around Europe in three weeks?” She asks, but by the tone of her voice you can tell she already knows the answer.

“I…may have borrowed some of Stark’s tech.”

“Stolen.”

“Technicalities, Natalia,” You shoot back, smile on your lips and eyes subtly looking out of the hotel window in search of your soldier. “’Sides, he wouldn’t have made a cloaking device for someone’s arm if he didn’t intend for Bucky to wear it.”

“And the face-morphing masks you took from my stash in the tower were just…what?”

“We are sisters, Natalia. Learn to share, sheesh.”

__

You sit on the floor, your back resting on the bed as you pretend not to ogle Bucky cooking dinner.

“I can feel ya’ starin’ at me, doll.”

“Are you complaining?” You retort easily, standing up and walking up to him slowly, taking your time and letting your eyes wander over his broad shoulders, that move carefully and precisely as he slices some vegetable you cannot see; his strong back that your fingers itch to trace over and over, retrace a path you know by memory by now; his powerful thighs that prompt not so pure thoughts to blossom in your head.

Bucky doesn’t answer to your teasing, shaking his head to himself and breathing a laugh, but saying nothing.

You reach him, wrapping your arms around his waist and pressing your forehead between his shoulder blades, smile on your lips as you feel his deep breath at the almost full-body contact. 

Although touch and affection has been common for most of the time you have been together, and these last few weeks have done nothing but make touch and intimacy easier for both you and Bucky; you know there’s always a part of him reassured, maybe even surprised, when you two settle in this weird domesticity of yours, and touch flows easily between you.

You close your eyes tight, wishing you didn’t have to do what you are about to.

“I contacted Elena. She’s waiting for me in Moscow.”

A beat of silence goes by before he answers, but the way he holds his breath and his hands stop the movement of the knife almost instantly tell you enough.

“When?”

The question is brash, cutting. You feel the way he controls his breathing as he anticipates your answer, like a prisoner awaiting his execution. You have to swallow past the knot in your throat before answering.

“I’m leaving tomorrow. You should move too.” You whisper, face still hidden in the middle of his back.

Bucky sighs, taking your hands where they lay crossed over his hard stomach and forces you gently to let go of your hold on him, turning around and facing you with anguished eyes and lips pulled tight.

“Doll…”

Before he can speak, you try quietening whatever he will try to say, because you are not so sure you will pull through with this if you hear the same fears running through your head come from his lips.

“I have to do it. We talked about this.”

“I know, but…” You hear the words that he wouldn’t utter, the same ones that have been stuck in your head like a curse at the wind, at the universe, at Destiny itself since Elena forwarded you the meeting point.

_I thought we’d have more time._

Bucky takes a hold of your face between his hands, eyes searching yours, “Doll, you have to be careful.”

“I will.”

“You have to look over your shoulder at all times, okay? It is not safe to trust this girl, either.” He adds, an anxiety in his tone that makes your stomach twist. You try smiling, but aren’t so sure he even detects the small twist of your lips.

“I know.”

“And don’t hesitate to use the girl’s identity as cover. If any-…”

You grab a hold of his forearms, his hands still holding your face, and you feel the rapid pounding of his pulse on his wrists.

“Bucky, I will be okay. And I will come back.” You whisper, watching as his eyes fall closed at your words, although you don’t think he believes you.

Resting his forehead against yours, he steals a gentle kiss before responding, voice quiet like yours, as if not to tempt fate with easily broken promises being uttered.

“I know. And you bet we are retirin’ after this.”

__

You wake up at some point during the night when your body misses Bucky’s warm embrace. Rubbing your hand over your eyes and holding the sheet to your chest you sit up in the bed, looking for the ruffled brown hair in the small studio apartment.

Bucky is sitting on the modest dinner table, only a few feet away from the bed, back turned to you.

Hastily draping his discarded Henley over your body, you stand up and walk towards him. Laying a hand over his naked back, you feel your heart clench in worry at the cold sweat you find running down his spine.

“Bucky?” You whisper, and when he mumbles an acknowledgment, you press a kiss on his shoulder, right where skin meets metal, and add “Nightmare?”

“Not yet.”

 Your chest tightens at the meaning behind his words. Taking a seat on a chair next to his, you try soothing him, but you know it’s going to take more than words and promises to make Bucky believe what he has, what he cares for is his to keep, is there to stay. It’s going to take years, and peace, and work.

You can promise you will try to give him the later, but for now all you can do is play with the former.

“We are going to be alright. Kseniya is dead. It’s over, I just need to get her ghost off my back, Bucky.”

“Karpov isn’t.”

Frustration seeps into your tone at the reminder. A reminder of how you could have avoided all this, about how maybe, just maybe, life could be something other than running if you had just pulled the trigger.

“He should be. I should’ve killed him, I was _so close_.”

A slight crease settles between Bucky’s brows, “What are you talking about?”

“Before…Natalia took the memories, I was after Hydra, trying to find a link to my sister o-or you,” You explain, “I found a track to the Winter Soldier Program, found the man in charge for it, for…for you. I tracked down his heartbeat. His soulmate.”

“Did you…?”

You are shaking your head before the question is even out of his lips, “No. She was his wife, they had two daughters. I just…told them of what daddy dearest did off the grids, they ran off. So did their mother.

You are brought back to the present when you feel a slight touch on your hand, and lower your eyes to see Bucky is holding it between his own, grey-blue eyes set on you.

You hide a small smile that fights for a chance to twist your lips upwards at the small gesture, the simple reassurance that has become as important to the both of you as the beat of his heart when you fear the worst will happen, the cadence of your voice around his name when he dreams that the worst already did occur.

Taking a deep breath, you continue, “Then I went after Karpov,” You don’t have to explain the reasoning behind your thirst for blood so many years ago, Bucky already knows. In whispered conversations, snippets of memories exchanged between you in the late nights that followed Kseniya’s death; Bucky has shared what he remembers of Karpov, you have told him of the few things you remembered when fighting the girl, but you are too afraid to ask questions, the pain you witnessed fifty years ago still fresh in your mind. Shaking your head to force yourself back into the conversation at hand, you add, “Turns out booking a trip between Kiev and Siberia wasn’t so hard back then. I took out some of the guards, but when I got to Karpov I…I fucking _hesitated_.”

A beat of silence, and then…

“I…I remember.”

“You do?” Your voice comes out higher than you meant it to. Bucky frowns to himself, at the tangle of memories that are fighting for recognition in the back of his mind, and his hand spasms over yours when he whispers,

“I thought…I thought I had- I didn’t believe it was real.”

“W-What?”

“The time you snuck into the facility. I remember it,” There’s a tremulous smile on his lips. A broken sort of wonder colors his face as his eyes fall from yours. “I heard your voice that night, I knew I had.”

You told yourself for too long that he wasn’t there, that you had chased after another dead end. You told yourself…you believed he wasn’t there. You never thought he actually was, and you just walked past him.

You never thought it would’ve been you the thing that bought him fifty years more in that hell.

You shake your head, the images of what you remembered when Kseniya started taunting you in that facility flashing through your head. Bucky’s blood dripping down to the floor, Karpov’s mocking voice, the smell of burning flesh.

“I tried…I tried, but I-I couldn’t find you.” You whisper brokenly, prompting your soldier to rush to take you in his arms, “I can’t believe I was so close, Bucky.”

“It’s okay, doll.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey,” Bucky whispers, hand running down your hair soothingly. He holds you until your breathing quietens enough for you to wrap your arms around his waist, returning his embrace. After a while, you feel the soft press of his lips on your hair, and a faint whisper, “It was worth it. For you, it was all worth it.”

And so you remain, both of you standing in the dark apartment, holding tight onto one another and refusing to utter a goodbye.

Three words beg for release from your chest, but you lock them tight behind your lips, promising yourself to finally say them when it is safe to know you can promise him a life made out of something other than fear and memories.

It’s in the early morning, while you ready the last of your belongings and prepare yourself to leave that Bucky goes back to the conversation of the previous night.

“I…tried finding you too, once,” There’s a hint of fear in his eyes when they swiftly move between your own and the nothingness in front of him, “The details…I don’t remember much. I just know I was sent on a mission somewhere near Kiev, while I was in charge of the girls. I guess the leash was looser than they thought,” He barks out a bitter laugh that sounds like sandpaper in your ears, forcing you to hide a grimace at the pain behind his words. “I don’t even remember if I finished the mission, but I know I ran away from the extraction point. I had a picture in my pocket and I-I wanted to at least know what had…happened to her- to _you_.”

“Did you find anything?”

He shakes his head, the hint of a proud smile teasing at his lips.

“No, you are good at hiding. Always were,” His eyes are still haunted by the demons that were too long in control of his mind and body, but still there’s a relief in his voice as he says so. You are about to comment on it, but he continues speaking, and you save your question for another day. “I knew I had to go back at the end, so I did. Karpov…he knew I had run off, I d-don’t know how he knew, but he did.”

_You are destined to end her, and yet you search for her?_

“He…tortured you.”

Bucky dismisses swiftly, “Wasn’t something I hadn’t been through before. Hydra doesn’t like failure.”

_You are weaker than I thought. You tell yourself you can protect her, and yet you call her name when you die._

“He used my name against you, Buck. I know, I _saw_ it,” You fall back to the bed, holding your head in your hands and blinking past angry tears that rise in your eyes. “God, I was…I could’ve killed him.”

The shadows in his eyes break your heart when he crouches in front of you in the bed, smiling softly your way, in that sad, resigned way of his that never fails to make your heart heavier.

“If you had, you wouldn’t have left Siberia, Y/N.” He states, voice hard despite the pain, and his voice lowers to a dangerous edge when he adds, “Karpov wants more than a Winter Soldier out of you, angel. He wants revenge.”

“I know.”

“Don’t let him get close enough, okay?”

You nod again, “Okay.”

Bucky leans down to kiss you softly, sweetly, but taking his time moving his lips over yours, as if memorizing the feel and taste of you. Breaking apart, you rest your forehead on his and close your eyes as his voice reaches you again.

“And come back to me.”

This promise is easy to make.

“ _Always_.”

__

There’s an alarm going off in the cockpit as you are travelling over Russia’s cold north, and when you turn your eyes to the monitor, your heart drops to your feet when you see the ‘incoming projectile’ notification pop up.

Who…why would someone take down Kseniya? It is her name on your heart, there is no way they tracked it…

And then you remember. The man in Vienna, the message you refused. He had approached you as you were monitoring movement on the city on one of your first days there, checking for possible hideouts as Bucky did the same on the other side of town. A man had approached you, mumbled something in broken German, but you had smiled and deflected his approach. He tried a couple of times more, growing more and more…confused each time you refused his attempts at an odd conversation starter.

He was trying to approach Kseniya with a message. He…he was Karpov’s way of testing whether the girl had left the facility in the Indic Ocean.

And you had failed.

_Next time we call, you better answer._

“Oh, God…”

You take the comms from the plane, your hand shaking as you put the earpiece on its place.

“Solnyshka?”

“N-Nat…I can’t let them take me alive.” You choke out, your other hand holding on tightly to your gun, the aircraft swerving swiftly to the side to avoid the incoming missile. But you know it will not be enough.

“What are you talking about?”

You take a deep breath, steeling your heart past the fear churning your insides like acid, “I’ll fight them, I promise, but…I can’t…”

Your voice dies down in a stuttering choke, and you hear Natalia moving on the other side of the line.

“Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

“Nat…”

“Y/n, just tell me where you are!”

Forced to ignore the question, because it will do more harm than good at the end, you try explaining, even as your throat is closed tight and your lips tremble as you speak,

“Karpov found me, Nat. He was counting on Kseniya dying. She always said she was…she was a means to an end, why didn’t I listen!?” The anger at yourself, at the blindness, at the way Karpov had played you makes tears rise in our eyes, your voice catching as you continue, “She was the bait, Bucky was right…oh, God, Nat I-I don’t…I can’t let them get me…”

“They won’t. Listen to me, I’m going to find you, just…just forward the coordinates, okay? I’ll…I’ll…”

Despite your attempts to avoid it, the missile hits the quinjet, destabilizing the plane and forcing you to watch as Russia’s cold land approaches with frightening speed to meet you.

A scream of your name is torn out of your sister’s throat at the sound of the explosion, forcing a sob out of your chest, tears falling down your cheeks.

“O-Once this hits the ground…I…I can’t let them take me alive Nat, not again.” The resolve on your voice, the way the tremble is gone should scare you, but you are too focused on the way the worn leather stretches over your left hand was you grip the gun tighter, your sister’s bracelet shining over your wrist as you turn down your eyes to the hand.

“They won’t, I swear they won’t. I can get to you, I promise, sweetheart, I promise. Sister, I…” She tries soothing, but the words are hectic, nothing more than the result of denial, as if by the power of her words alone she could keep you safe, she could keep you near.

You cannot take your eyes off your hand, fingers wrapped tight around the handgun, protected by the leather of Bucky’s glove, embellished by the simple design of Natalia’s bracelet.

“I love you, Natalia. Tell Bucky…t-tell him I don’t regret a thing, okay?”

A loud crash sounds on the other side of the line, but you focus on Natalia’s stubborn scream, “You tell him yourself! I’m not saying goodbye again, Y/N!”

You close your eyes against the pain, the tears tracing a path of fire down your cheeks. Shaking your head, you feel the twist in your stomach as the shaking and burning quinjet gets seconds away from impact.

“They are calling. I have to answer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this one’s a thought: Do I headcanon that these two dorks have already fondued all over Europe in these last three weeks/month? Yes. Am I brave enough to write it? Not yet.
> 
> Also, I’m actually quite proud of this chapter, especially the end.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a snippet, what happens directly after the crash and what comes before Nat’s and Bucky’s PoV.

The strong smell and coppery taste of blood flood your senses as you wake up. Groaning at the dizziness, the pain spreading through your head and the sting in your right eye where blood has dripped in from the cut somewhere in your forehead, you try moving away from the cockpit.

_Heavy footsteps behind you, voices barking orders in Russian._

Your powers cannot aid you now, though, because when you try standing up and moving from your seat pain spreads through your side, forcing a pained whine out of your throat.

“Она здесь!” They scream, and the busted door of the cockpit is ripped off its hinges.

You grip the handgun you still hold tighter, and point it to the door.

Six agents fall before you have to reload, and a single hit on the back of your head while you do so drops you unconscious.

__

There’s an uncomfortable pressure on your leg as you wake up, wincing at the odd pain.

“Welcome back, Miss Romanova.” A nurse greets, voice formal and professional as his eyes remain on your leg.

A small device is being held over your calf, light shining over your leg and making you feel a dull compression on the inside of your leg as if…as if someone was forcibly mending a bone in record time.

Relief washes over you when you realize you are in some sort of hospital, and that somehow…somehow you got out. A small smile curves your lips upwards, and you take the tubes from your nose carefully, eyes scanning over the machines attached to your body and wincing at the sight of needles in your arms.

“Bu-…” Your voice cracks, but you swallow past the dry lips and throat and try again, “Sergeant Barnes, where is he?”

“You are not home, Y/N.”

You turn your eyes to the door, where Karpov stands in tactical clothing, face ragged and weathered but eyes still those of the man you almost killed so long ago.

He walks towards you, dismissing the nurse with a gesture of his hand and stopping his strut only a few feet away from your bed.

You swallow past the fear that makes all your body tense and ache, and lift your eyes to the Colonel.

“You look good, for a 130 year-old man.”

“Hydra has its secrets,” He mentions, promptly ignoring your question and staring back at you with the dead eyes of a monster, “You have cost me too much to get, girl.”

A bitter smile turns your lips upwards, and your gaze falls from his when you state, “Kseniya would’ve been a better soldier than me, Karpov.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why? She wanted to serve Hydra. Why wasn’t that enough?”

The Colonel takes a seat next to you, carefully making sure not to disturb the various wires surrounding you in the hospital bed, finding a place at your side like a concerned family member, like a loving parental figure at your side. You almost laugh manically at yourself when you notice the irony.

He starts explaining calmly,

“She was too fragile, too easily breakable despite her loyalty. Her heart was-…well, that was a poor choice of words, wasn’t it?” He smiles, but you keep your face impassive, so the man continues, “While she longed to give Hydra the victory it is due, her poor heart…the girl didn’t survive the death of her soulmate. I have no use in a strong warrior who is weak at heart. Her powers were the only reason she was not terminated when you appeared on our radar.”

“I am…do you really think I am a match to a Winter Soldier?” You ask, but the man is quick to shake his head.

“I don’t need you to be. Even without your powers, I would want you, Y/N.”

“Because of my soulmate.”

“Because of what you did to protect him.

You hear his silent words, the giddy delight of a sick man in front of power he does not understand: _And what he did, what he_ would do _, to protect you._

Karpov continues,

“Soulmates are an amazing thing, girl. People lose their minds and keep their sanity through soulbonds. Which is why Kseniya failed. To have one’s soulmate die is alone something few people survive…but to be the one to pull the trigger? That is surely a destiny worse than death.”

Dark eyes meet yours, silently awaiting a response you do not want to give. But morbid curiosity overwhelms you, and the words leave your lips at the end, albeit shakily,

“Is that a threat, Karpov? Will you fool yourself into believing I will kill Bucky for you?”

“I won’t make you,” He assures, a defensive tone in the Hydra officer you haven’t heard before, not even when your gun barrel was pressing against his head on that cold facility so many years ago. “I know better now than to mess with a soulbond, kid.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Hydra does not make mistakes,” He starts, making you frown at the way he seems to ignore your question and radically change the topic, “The Winter Soldier Program was almost infallible. I managed to make the Asset forget it all, except your name.

There is no heat behind his words, no anger, no desire for revenge. You do not know who this man is, but the Colonel that tortured Bucky for weeks on end is not sitting next to you, that is for sure. That man was as thirsty for your blood as you were for his, and like Bucky warned you, he would want more than a Winter Soldier out of you. He would want revenge, blood for blood, lossfor loss.

But now…now Karpov speaks calmly, almost in a detached manner, as if someone narrating the misadventures of a few rats on a laboratory.

It terrifies you to your core, but apparently, your attempts to conceal his effect on you are successful because Karpov keeps on talking.

“I lost half a facility because you managed to track me and your soulmate down. He almost ran away too many times to count because he kept remembering you,” The man turns to you, but his dark greenish eyes are set on the machine attached to the small clip on your finger, the ups and downs of your very own heartbeat. “I’m making sure I don’t make the same mistakes again, this time. Hydra needs you.”

“Hydra can fuck off.”

Karpov laughs as he shakes his head, raspy sound echoing in the small hospital room. There’s a certain calmness to him, a frightening certainty of victory that does nothing but make the weight on your heart even heavier.

“No need to be aggressive, little one.”

There’s a tightness in your throat, a shake in your hands and a horrible feeling of dread pooling in your stomach. Still, the venom is not lost in your voice when you speak again,

“The moment you put a gun in my hands I will shoot you, and if I can’t do that, I will shoot myself.” You snarl back, jaw clenched and fighting back impotent tears that rise in your eyes.

“We’ll see about that, girl.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italicized bits are either (or and in some cases hehe) a memory, dream, or one of the futures the Reader sees. I tried to make it as clear as possible, if there’s something you don’t understand or seems confusing, don’t hesitate to let me know.

_“The moment you put a gun in my hands I will shoot you, and if I can’t do that, I will shoot myself.” You snarl back, jaw clenched and fighting back impotent tears that rise in your eyes._

_“We’ll see about that, girl.”_

__

It’s been three weeks, and you have never stood on more unstable ground.

All you have done is train, and though Karpov holds a gun to the back of your head for most of the time, and guards follow you closely everywhere, no one has laid a hand on you.

But that’s all there has been to it, for almost three weeks. Wake up, train, report to Karpov, sleep, repeat.

Considering Hydra’s hierarchy, that you are awfully familiar with after years of running away or towards them, you cannot help but notice you are being treated not as a soldier, but as an officer. A high ranking one, at that.

Your quarters are on the farthest end of the facility, with full accommodations -aside form the comms that were ripped off the wall before you were brought in- and your bed is as soft as that in the compound.

There’s agents around you at all times, yes, but they are respectful and almost…fearful towards you. When soldiers are sent to train with you, training is all there is to it, no unnecessary brutality, no cruelty.

Despite your efforts to run away, despite the agents you have killed in the multiple attempts to get out; Karpov has remained patient, his men obedient and you…you are left terrified.

Karpov has managed to get you on a tight leash, without even lifting a finger.

You have tried escaping, of course you have.

_You disarm the Colonel as he approaches, raising the gun to his head and smiling in triumph._

_“I told you that you shouldn’t leave me near a gun.”_

_“Go ahead, shoot me. But do one thing for me first, see what you can see happening afterwards,” His voice is calm, too calm even, as he nods your way, “Use your powers, Y/N.”_

_You do, and the rush of images of blood and screams following Karpov’s death fill your mind, countless soldiers dead at your feet but never enough, your body being forced down and the sound of that damned machine that still stands in the middle of the containment area of the facility starting up fills your ears._

_You drop the gun, but keep your eyes on Karpov, waiting for his move._

_“I will not become your weapon.” You snarl as the guards ready themselves to escort you to your quarters. The Colonel merely smiles, with a confident and mocking smirk you know too well._

Too many times to count you have tried.

_The sound of the knife swiftly leaving the holster wakes up the Colonel, and you hold back a smile as you watch the middle-aged man rise in bed._

_You say nothing as you approach, knife in hand and aimed at his throat._

_His big hand traps your forearm before you can do so, and Karpov brings his face close to your own._

_“You will not. You are too good.”_

_“Oh, fuck you.” You spit back, adjusting your grip on the handle to strike, but you feel a thread strengthening suddenly, and reach for your energy to see what will happen._

_You see yourself running away from the facility, quickly taking over a snow truck and reaching Kiev in a matter of days._

_You see your eyes watching in horror at the screens on a train station:_ Black Widow, original member of the Avengers, rumored to have been sniped and killed while in Stark tower. Tony Stark imp-…

_An enraged scream leaves your throat at the way Karpov has outplayed you again, and let go of the knife, but not before piercing his clavicle with it, embedding him on the bed._

And too many times you have failed.

So silent you remain, and you take on the training sessions, and you report your progress to the Colonel each night before going to sleep. And you go to your bed, close your eyes, wait for the facility to fall asleep, and sneak out.

You have studied the Winter Soldier book Karpov kept close to his heart for all these years. You have learnt about the practices in the facility more acutely in these last weeks than in over a year of researching Hydra’s Ghost.

The files on Project Cataclysm are impressive in on themselves too, although the development of the serum and its applications were merely Hydra stumbling in the dark, so no important data was found in the old files within Siberia’s underground base.

You have ten words memorized in your head, a dozen others meant for emergency reactions safe within your memory. You know Karpov will not meddle with it. Your memory, you mean. He has told you time and time again that he wants an agent, a voluntary one, not another Asset. Assets fall from grace, break programming, but someone loyal to the mission, even if not its ideals? They will handle Hydra the world once again.

Still, you know what this man is capable of, experienced it through the eyes of your soulmate one too many times; and you know that despite his claims to want you to be compliant by choice, there’s nothing stopping him from punishing you for your attempts on his life, or the lives of the agents you have cost him.

Yet, he doesn’t much as raise his voice at you. It scares you, and not because you fear Karpov himself, but because you know whatever makes _him_ fear the repercussions of harm falling unto you is something out of nightmares.

A sharp pain spreads through your side when one of the soldiers tries bringing you back out of your thoughts and into the sparring session. You unsheathe a knife and throw it his way, letting it find a home in his thigh before he can even correct his stance.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“We are supposed to spar.” He growls out, taking out the bloodied knife and throwing it somewhere behind him. Your lips twist into a snarl as you approach him, already playing with another throwing knife between your fingers.

“Wanna spar? I bet you make a great bullseye.” You tease, easy smile on your lips as you see the man’s eyes fill with fear.

There’s a second too long, even as you back down and drop the act that has become too much like your own skin in these last weeks, where you see in him the fear that you will slice his throat open in the middle of the training ground.

His fear unsettles you much less than it should. But you try not to linger on it, Karpov’s guards are here, with their gazes set on you. A slip and he will know you are crumbling, and he can’t. Your only advantage over him is that you refuse to agree to his terms, bow down to his demands. You cannot allow him the satisfaction of seeing the monster take over the girl.

At least not until the time is right.

Your powers have been strengthened more than you thought possible, the futures you can see now, although maybe a little blurrier and more uncertain, go into the farther future. And you have felt, in snippets, broken edges that are slowly being pieced together, the way Siberia’s cold will graze your arms as you walk out free. That is enough to make you wait, to make you plan and weight the choices before jumping into battle.

That, and Karpov’s thinly veiled threats to your sister and your soulmate. He knows what he is doing, even if some sick part of him is still out for blood when it comes to you and Bucky for what you did decades ago, even if he still wants the Soldat at his feet.

So you grit your teeth and go through the motions, waiting for the crack in the Colonel’s armor, waiting for the day you can finally see his eyes dim with the just and unescapable touch of Death.

The man in question sits in front of you in his office, datapad on his hand as he scrolls through some file.

“Have your powers improved in any way?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Try seeing what I will do next, girl. And then ponder about lying to me again.”

You narrow your eyes with a scoff, but do it anyways, reaching for his energy and trying to feel the tangled tendrils of his intentions.

_You are brought to the upper levels of the facility. The hissing sound of a cryo chamber opening scratching your ears._

_They drag a blonde woman out. She is quickly restrained, but a few barked words in Russian make her stop trying to get free, make her eyes stop bubbling with that animal rage._

_Her eyes set on you for a second, and she smiled, a terrifying turn of her lips as they twist on a silent growl rather than a smile, the same edge of Kseniya’s unhinged certainty shining in her clear eyes as she regards you._

_“_ Она мягкая. И испугался. (She is soft. And scared.)” The woman sneers, but Karpov is quick to stop her on her tracks.

“Она также защищена.” (Protected too.)

“Но я хочу играть” (But I want to play.)

You blink past the images in your head, and stare at the Colonel with wide eyes.

“Are you putting me up against a Winter Soldier!?”

Karpov smiles, leaning back and regarding you with the rejoiced expression of someone with a winning hand.

“No. I’m sending her to New York.”

_Live footage, right from the Soldier’s attached camera, shows her way into the compound, sneaking right into the heart of the facility. You are forced to stay still on the chair where they put you, watching with fearful eyes as the Russian Winter Soldier enters the compound._

_Quickly placed bombs, set to detonate on her mark. She continues stalking the corridors. Wanda’s room is not even opened as the blonde shoots through the door and ends the Sokovian._

_You choke down a sob, but tears are streaming down your eyes as you watch._

_An alarm. Four soldiers standing in front of her. The recognition in Bucky’s eyes. The fear in Natalia’s._

_Vibranium knife lodges right in the place where skin meets metal on Bucky’s arm. Before the blonde can move in for the kill, a redhead moves in, gun in hand and shield in the other._

_“Where is my sister?”_

_“мертвый”_

_It is enough to stagger the Widow, the Soldier’s knife going right through her chest. Natalia’s mouth opens with a scream, but blood dribbling down her parted lips quickly quietens her voice._

The sound of your own gasping breaths brings you out of the future your powers provide, tears brimming in your eyes as you face Karpov with a mix of rage and pain.

“Now, tell me about your new limits in your powers, Y/N.” He states, cold and professional demeanor as he regards you with a glint of triumph in his tired and dead eyes.

You do, through gritted teeth and with bare minimum details, eyes defiant on his. When the Colonel motions for you to leave, you lean on his desk, towering over his sitting form.

“I will kill you at the end, you know it, right?”

“Have you seen it?” He teases, easy smile on his lips that makes bile churn your stomach.

“I don’t need to.”

He chuckles, as if dealing with a child, and motions for you to be escorted out of his office.

____

On these last few weeks, Karpov has pushed you to try to find a link, a trace of the energy you follow to find the possible futures pertaining to one person, in objects of emotional significance to them, one way or another.

It has worked. And the Colonel is disgustingly happy with the achievement.

He makes you try and see the futures of old agents, sometimes runaway ones. The notes taken on your reports are vast and quick, but they are never shown to you.

And this blinding success is what allows you to breach into the network of one of the mining facilities Karpov takes you to, being the dog at his side as he monitors the situation.

The Doctor is focused on the results in your recent exams, reading over and over the words in your reports over your powers and their use, when you are cleaning their trace in the net. Leaving what you hope Natalia finds, the perfect absence you left behind when you wanted your sister, but no one else, to find you.

You clench your jaw and squeeze your eyes shut at night, hoping to whatever is willing to listen that they can find you. You can only hope, and you fear the destruction that terrible and dangerous hope can leave behind.

___

It comes a day when you fear they will not find you, that the message was not enough and they will not find the trace back to you. They do. But it is already too late.

Karpov is tipped off by one of his men that Captain America is incoming. Only a slight nod is all the answer the Colonel gives, before he is left alone with you, and turns slowly to you.

You try telling yourself it is not fear what runs through your veins the moment you stand face to face with the bloodthirsty Colonel you remember almost killing when you were young. You try telling yourself it’s adrenaline, excitement…but there’s no hiding the trembling in your hands, the erratic beat of your heart when the familiar sounds of fighting approach the facility and Karpov stands silently before you, dead grey eyes on yours.

“You made a mistake, girl.”

A smile is all you give in return, before reaching for the knife at your back and rising your arm in defense.

“Don’t come any closer.” You warn, backing towards the door. The Colonel smiles, a frightening, sinister smile.

“Scared?”

Before long, you move to strike before he can decide to. Going for a clean cut in his torso, which he quickly deflects, you lose your balance for a second.

_Hand grabs your arm, twisting the wrist and having the knife fall from your grasp._

You move your wrist out of his reach, but his hand never moves to grab it. Instead, long fingers wrap around your throat, lifting you up.

The knife changes hands, and you reach up with your left hand, slicing the inside of his elbow, forcing a grunt out of his lips and setting you free.

_The bloodloss makes him dizzy, the uninjured arm tries swinging your way, but fails._

Predicting his clumsy moves, you try bolting for the door, hoping the team outside has any sort of long-range support to cover you once you are out.

But Karpov’s heavy boot lands painfully on your calves, forcing your knees to buckle, but before you can fall to the ground, the Colonel pins you to the wall, his forearm pressed roughly against your back and breath rough on your ear when he growls,

“Too slow, girl.”

Despite the pain on your head from where it hit the wall, the way your body still sings with a mixture of fear and the relief of finally facing off the monster under your bed; you keep your jaw set tight and your eyes dry when you are forced to turn and watch Karpov in the eye.

Moving up your arm before he can completely immobilize you, you press the blade to your throat.

And as expected, the man lets you go.

“I know your weakness, Karpov,” You purr, turning around and forcing blood to drip from the small cut you trace on your skin, all the while ignoring the sharp sting of it. The man’s eyes are focused on it, prompting your smile to turn a little less false, a lot more cold. “You have played all your cards.

You walk slowly away from him, circling him as he gauges your stance, your expression, trying to predict you. Like one predator against another, you stand still, the knife against your throat still, his eyes distrusting and almost fearful too.

“Your weakness, it’s a thing as human as _fear_. It’s the natural fear, the one that you can’t shake off, the one that haunts you no matter what you do to avoid it…that’s the fear that will burn you down, Colonel,” You watch his hands clench, his eyes travel to the door behind you separating you from freedom and the chaos of battle, when you tighten your grip on the knife, and force more blood down your throat. “And you fear what is away from your reach, what you can’t predict, what lies beyond your control.”

“I control you, girl.”

But you shake your head, a mix of joy and cold satisfaction running through you like an electrical current. You just have to buy yourself time before Natalia, judging by the light and precise steps approaching the hallway, finds you.

“You said it yourself, Karpov. You know better than to mess with a soulbond,” The smile in your lips widens, “Prove me wrong, let me bleed, let me hurt. Let me be in so much pain that I turn to Hydra for reprieve.

You cock your head to the side, the sting of the blade on your neck nothing compared to the great feeling of victory settling over you.

“You won’t, will you? Because you have tried the same before. Burning me out of existence. I remember,” There’s a moment when you think the Colonel will interrupt you, speak up. But he doesn’t, so you continue, “You won’t touch a hair on my head and I know why, Colonel. You don’t fear me, you don’t even fear Bucky, or my sister. You fear what happens when he feels me in the other end of the bond, suffering. You fear what happens when Natalia is out for blood. You fear what I will do with you once I know they are out of your reach. You fear us.

Although there’s a strong pull to reach for the strengthening bind to the future, you ignore it for the time being, being sure to put on a mocking smile on your face when you state,

“Like I said. You fear what you can’t control.”

You feel your heartbeat settle in your chest with painful beats, the name-less tune forced and struggling as you stumble back, your powers taking over your senses.

_There’s a strange pull taking your focus away from the fight out of the facility holding your sister’s hand on one of your own and skillfully maneuvering your gun with the other._

_You try shaking your head, getting rid of it, but a bullet flying past your head from a place at your back has both you and Natalia tumbling forward to cover, and when you turn around you feel your heart stop._

_It’s stupid, it’s reckless. God, you know it is._

_But there’s still hope clinging to your words, like the blood tainting your lips, dripping slowly into your voice._

_“Bucky?”_

_The Winter Soldier moves in for the attack, not even waiting for you or your sister to move. Natalia pushes you away from the blunt of the hit from his metal arm, your back hitting a wall as you watch with wide eyes as Natalia is hit square in her chest, falling to the floor and crawling away from the advancing soldier like a scared child trying to find refuge in her parents’ arms._

_“Sestra!” You scream, the word torn off your throat in a desperate attempt to make the world stop spinning, to make time freeze for just one instant, to make the mistresses of fate realized they have punished them enough._

_A moment of hesitation, a breath caught in your throat._

_Bucky turns to you, and you see some flicker of recognition flash behind the Soldat’s cold gaze._

_The sound of the gunshot is something that your soul knows somehow, you will never forget._

_When Bucky falls, there’s tears in your sister’s eyes, and a smoking handgun on her trembling, guilty hands._

You try warning Natalia, you try reaching out and doing something to save either of them, but your eyes fall closed, your body tumbling down, before you can even utter a sound.

__

_Kseniya chases you through the streets, agile legs carrying her over the roofs as she catches up to you. Letting herself fall down right in front of you, although a few feet away, the blonde points her gun at you, dead eyes set on yours, and you do the same thing._

_“You want me alive,” You state, praying she doesn’t hear the tremor in your voice. “I won’t let you take me.”_

_“I can make you,” She smirks, pretending to advance, and managing to set you even more on edge as you try to keep an eye on both her and the threads referring to each possible future._

_You take a step back, “You can’t. What do you want me for?”_

_“You are needed, girl. The miracles failed, is time to go back to good ol’ weapons.” She sing-songs, making the hairs at the back of your neck stand up. In what seems like a puff of smoke, she is standing right in front of you._

_You shoot. One, two times._

_But the bullets go through her like she is made of mist._

_“What…?”_

_She smirks your way, taking out a picture from your backpack and pretending to study it. You can only stare at her with wide eyes._

_“Nice picture, dolly,” She lifts her eyes to yours, and only then you notice the way some sort of dark mist is swimming inside of them, like the red you saw in the new girl in the Avengers group. She presses her palm to your chest, over your heart, and leaves the picture pressed against your jacket. “Better give it back to its owner, pretty thing. It’s never too late, is it?”_

_“Kseniya?” You whisper. She looks at you, now her clear eyes shining with unsheded tears, her mouth trembling. Her expression is that of the broken girl that killed her soulmate and begged a stranger with whom she shared a distant past for forgiveness._

_But there’s a strange fierceness in it too, a flame trying to ignite a fire past Hydra’s ice._

_“It’s not too late,” She whispers, the distinct sound of crackling fire reaching your ears. “You had to take my place to set me free. But there’s still time.”_

_“Time?” You ask, watching numbly as flames engulf her form, her hand still stubbornly pressing the picture into your heart._

_Her silver eyes set on you, a broken relief flooding them, and she falls down at your feet. The flames die surrounding her, a last rite to another victim of Siberia’s cold, and what is left is a girl with a bullet on her head, lying dead on the ground, somewhere on a lost island in the Indian Ocean._

_You look down at your hand, the picture now in your hand as you press it into your heart, trying to somehow keep it safe._

_The face of the past looks right back at you, and the words embedded in the back swim in your head._

_“Bucky. Bucky. Don’t forget that. Count the beats, don’t forget that. Bucky.” You whisper._

You smell the clean and spiked scent of a hospital room before you even open your eyes. Your first thought is whether or not the team made it out of the facility you sent them to, if they found anything to lead them to you, and how to erase the trail before Karpov can do something worse than death upon any of you.

A doctor greets you with a tight smile and fearful eyes, prompting you to get up and walk a few steps, checking your blood pressure and letting the small clip still be attached to your finger, so you can heart the maddening beat of your heartbeat, driving you crazy.

The incident in the facility replays in your brain like a broken record.

_Karpov worked around my ability to predict him._

When you ask the doctor what was the reason you collapsed, she states something about low blood sugar and the air pressure in the mining facility before giving you your new schedule and escorting back to bed.

You are set to train almost twice as many hours as before, with so many of the time invested in training being focused on your abilities instead of your combat techniques. You say nothing when she asks if you have any questions, but there’s a part of you that cannot help but notice you have been liberated of reporting to Karpov each night.

The doctor leaves, promising you that you will be ‘home’ soon, and it is only then that you realize you are in a vehicle. When you open your eyes again, you notice you still are in one of Hydra’s underground trains, you can tell by the damp smell that still clouds the wagon. There’s a presence next to you, but you refuse to acknowledge him.

“What is it going to take for you to accept it?”

“That I’m not getting out? Death, Karpov.” You answer back, eyes still on the black nothingness of the tunnel as it flies past your widow.

“That you may get out if you do as you are told.”

The resilient silver of childish hope rises within you, but you are quick to tame it with the reality of who you are dealing with.

“How many people have you asked for their souls in exchange for freedom, Colonel?”

“Not many that could pay up for said freedom,” You turn to him, not saying anything, but the interest subtly shown in your moves. The man is dressed in civilian, although almost formal clothing, his hands folded in his lap and eyes set on the front of the empty wagon as he continues, “I want you to find a former agent. Rumlow, Brock Rumlow. He has gone haywire, and I fear he will…tamper our name.”

“You want him dead.”

“I’m not sending you into the field.”

“Smart.” You admit, wry smile twisting your lips.

“I want him found and tracked, girl. You will see it is easier if you comply.”

The word in itself makes bile rise in your throat, acid churn in your stomach. Karpov stands up, straightening his clothes before setting off to walk out of the wagon, but not before stating,

“And no tricks, girl. I get word you are bringing them to us, and I won’t stop them, I won’t escape. I’m going to have the Soldat rip them apart as you watch. And then put a bullet in his brain. If I’m merciful.”

You don’t say anything, clenching your jaw and looking ahead as the man leaves with measured and heavy steps. Helplessness and fear battle within you, making your hands shake and lip quiver stupidly.

But you push past it, you try seeing the light at the end, the possibility of maybe freedom. You don’t think you can live on without that stupid hope.

And you are not counting on Karpov for your freedom, oh no. You are counting ghosts.

While searching for Rumlow, you sneak in small pieces of data on Kseniya, her work with Karpov and the events that led to her awakening by the Colonel more than a year ago to find you.

You study what you remember of the girl, her words, her actions.

You study what it takes to make someone kill their own soulmate. You study what they did to her, what left no marks but made her so pliable to Hydra’s whims.

You study what is so important they want out of you.

You study what will make you their soldier.

There’s countless files on the Winter Soldier Program scattered through your room, pages upon pages on Hydra’s insight on their perfect weapon.

You study what Bucky told you of his time as the Soldier. The training, the mind tricks, the lies.

You study the techniques they used to control him, their plans for his future. You study their intent to conjoint Hydra’s most powerful sources when they sent him to the Red Room, the project your death inadvertently stopped.

You study what they wanted to make out of the girls in the Red Room. The children in Project Cataclysm.

You study what they wanted, and want still, to make out of _you_.

____

It is somewhere in the middle of the night, almost a week after the incident in the mining facility, and you still haven’t seen Karpov. You haven’t reported to him, interacted with him.

All you do is train. Train and track Brock Rumlow in his mad path through Europe.

And research what the girl Karpov woke up, the girl that killed her own soulmate, wanted out of you.

You hold a picture, almost as old as the one Bucky has of you, of Kseniya Nikolaev. Third child of a family of five, taken at the age of sixteen and turned into an experiment by Hydra. Her soulmate was Adriana Donati, dead at the age of twenty one, sniped while she was assisting refuge efforts in northern Italy after an earthquake.

_She smirks your way, taking out a picture from your backpack and pretending to study it. You can only stare at her with wide eyes._

_“Nice picture, dolly,” She lifts her eyes to yours, and only then you notice the way some sort of dark mist is swimming inside of them, like the red you saw in the new girl in the Avengers group. She presses her palm to your chest, over your heart, and leaves the picture pressed against your jacket. “Better give it back to its owner, pretty thing. It’s never too late, is it?”_

There’s a heavy weight in your stomach as you stare back at the face of the girl you killed without hesitation.

“Why did you drive me to him? Karpov didn’t plan on either of us killing each other, he said it himself.”

_“I’m not here to be your enemy, I’m here to offer you an out.”_

_“You know the kind of information I’ve got. If I have the names of the highest ranking officers, you know I know every dirty trick in the book that can ruin your sister’s and the Soldat’s lives. I want something simple and easy. My silence, in exchange for your abilities.”_

_“It is better if you just come home, and we both know it. I’m not calling yet, but I want you to know I have the advantage, always will.”_

Understanding falls on you with the rush and electricity of a free fall from the tallest height, the vertigo rushing through you and forcing a gasp out of your throat.

“You were stalling. All this time, you were buying time,” You shrug off the pull of sleep and exhaustion, standing up from your position on the floor and walking towards her file. “Why?”

Kseniya’s heartbeat rhythm stares back at you, and a conversation with Bucky you two had while somewhere in northern Romania is brought to the front of your mind.

_“Karpov didn’t want you to remember me. If my sister hadn’t changed my name, he would’ve killed me.” You start, eyes on one of the specks of cinnamon floating in your swirling coffee cup._

_“Why wouldn’t he stop my heart and re-start it?” Bucky finishes for you, to which you only answer with a shrug. It still scares you a bit how easy it is for him to talk about things like these, to speak of himself as nothing more than a target, a weapon._

_That is the way Hydra sees him, it frightens you how disconnected from himself he is sometimes._

_“I mean, it would be the smart thing to do. Memories erased, name gone…the whole package.”_

_“But Hydra wasn’t the one to come up with the name erasure technique.” He argues softly, finally sitting next to you on the couch and lifting your sock-cladded legs to rest in his lap, both metal and flesh arms resting gently over your calves._

_“They didn’t come up with many things they used during the years. What’s your point?”_

_“I don’t know. Natalia knew of the procedure by luck, and even though they planned on doing it to the Black Widows, it never pulled through.”_

_“But why?”_

_“Maybe they know more of heartbeats that we do.” This time it is his turn to shrug, prompting you to put up a fake affronted look on your face as you turn to him._

_“I earned a living from heartbeats, for almost fifty years. I’m insulted, dear.”_

_A small smile teases at the corners of his lips, the first unburdened smile you have seen on him since you pulled the trigger on that damned facility._

“They use our beats. Not the names. The rhythm.” You pondered out loud, hands quickly reaching for the intel on Project Cataclysm.

That’s why Hydra didn’t go through with their erasure of the girl’s heartbeats on the Red Room. That’s why so many kids died on the facility you were held on, even though the serum was easily survivable.

That’s why Kseniya killed her soulmate.

That’s why Karpov is so adamant in keeping you here, even if you cost him his men, his resources. Because they found a way to control the heartbeats.

Because there was more than the enhancement of abilities in Project Cataclysm.

Your heartrate spikes, as if your body knows the rhythm you thought a curse for so long is really so much more than that. And it wants you to listen. As your heartbeat fills your ears, resounding within your head in that nameless song, you realize something.

The picture of Kseniya still trapped within your hand, your eyes filling with tears at the realization.

_That’s why you didn’t give away my heartbeat rhythm until the end. That’s why you said we would be soulmates if I killed you._

_Because I would take your place. Not only your name, but your spot under the Colonel’s control._

The way Karpov always pushed you to use your powers when you were in the brink of overpowering him. The combat training without your powers he forced you to try.

The fight in the mining facility. The way your powers told you something, but he did something completely different.

“Oh, God. How much of it was real?” You whisper, trembling hand covering your mouth as the papers fall from your hands, sliding to the floor and joining countless others.

A sound coming from your -monitored- computer brings you out of your own head and, rubbing shaking fingers over your eyes to get rid of the dampness in them, you stumble to the monitor.

You are pressing the intercom button before you can think about it too much.

“Girl, I hope you have good news.”

“I found Rumlow, Colonel.” You sing back, a small smile taking over your face.

___

When the Doctor walks into the room, you are expecting her, holding to vials of liquid in one hand and the handgun in the other.

“Miss Romanova.” She greets, not even phased at the gun aimed at her head.

There’s a special kind of fear running through your veins right now. Like the fear you had the first time you left the Union when you found Natalia, like the first time you settled and made a home after your adoptive parents were killed, like the first time you looked into Bucky’s eyes. Like the first time you kissed him, like the first time you made love, like the first time you dared speak of a future so darn perfect it seemed impossible.

A special kind of fear, the kind of fear that makes you weaker, yes, but somehow more stubborn, more resilient. Maybe even braver enough to do what is needed.

“I’m gonna go on a limb and say you are not going to agree with me.”

“I might. What are you offering, Miss?” The woman replies, sitting calmly at her desk.

And suddenly you are in front of a lowlife in some unknown street of Austria, his valiant face asking something in return of his intel. And the words about the name on her heartbeat are at the tip of your tongue, but this time you do not let them out.

“What do you want, Doctor?”

“To disappear.”

You lean back, crossing your arms over your chest, but keeping your grip on the gun tight and secure.

“You will have to be more specific.”

“I read your file, Y/N. You evaded the Winter Soldier, the whole of Hydra, and even greater enemies I may not know of,” She states knowingly, hands carefully placed in the desk. But you notice the slight nervous twitching of her fingers as they are intertwined with one another. “You are good, of not the best.”

“Thank you for the compliment. Now, I would appreciate it if you made your point.”

“I made it. You went off the radar. Every radar there was. You can do so again, this time for me.”

A small laugh leaves your lips. Mocking, practiced, prodding. “You want your heartbeat off the charts.”

She nods,

“I want my life, my work, to vanish. As if it never existed.”

“Your name is in someone’s heart, though. My…disappearance was aided by the fact that no one knew my real name.”

“The heart with my name on it was stopped, a long time ago,” Before you can even ask the first question that runs through your head, the woman snaps, “No, it was never restarted.”

“Hydra?” You ask, eyes narrowed.

“The criminals I joined Hydra to kill.”

“So romantic.” You tease, cold smile still in place although the closeness to grasp your freedom, this time once and for all, makes your insides tremble.

“I read your file, Y/N,” She repeats, turning her back to you and paying attention to a heart monitor near her, and taking out some equipment and sterilizing it as she looks at you over the rim of her glasses, “Don’t pretend you didn’t dance with the Devil for your love’s soul.”

“I _danced_. I didn’t lay with the Devil, Doctor.” You spit back, the silent oath understood between you and the woman. _I am not Hydra, so don’t equal me to you._

“Different circumstances, different results. Same intent.” The woman shrugs, making blood boil under your skin.

It is with a sigh of concession that you remain silent for a few seconds, before clicking the safety of your gun once again, rendering the gun as harmless as it can be in the hands of a woman with the lastname Romanova.

“I want your heartbeat, Doc. Your name and history would make a nice addition.”

She motions for you to hop onto the table, after musing your response and finally nodding in agreement. You are taken aback by her disposition, and suddenly you are a girl again, standing in front of a scary Doctor in a Hydra facility, not sure of what they plan on doing to you.

_“Miss, please take a seat.” The man orders without even turning his head to look at you._

_“Did you kill my parents?” You ask, although you know the answer. At this point, you think asking questions and reminding yourself of the life outside these horrible, dark, and damp halls is what will keep you sane._

_Keep you remembering._

_“We did what we had to, Miss.”_

_“Is my sister alright? Are you taking me to her?”_

_“I’m afraid not.” The doctor retorts, tone bored and unchanging as he clearly focuses his attention on the papers in front of him. The ones with your vitals on them, probably._

_“The Winter Soldier, then?”_

_That gets him to turn around._

_Harsh brown eyes study you for what feels like an eternity, and the small, stupid silver of hope within you that this was going to be over in any way soon is stumped down when the Doctor takes a few steps towards you, studying you._

_“What do you know, girl?”_

_You remind yourself of what happened when you let others see what you feel, what you know. You remind yourself of the Colonel’s mocking laugh, of the dead soldiers at your feet, of your mother’s screams as she sees her adopted child being dragged away._

_You remind yourself who you are playing with._

_You remind yourself Hydra, the monster with no face, the legend of death and torture; they do not stand for threats._

_Your sister, your soulmate, were proof enough that with people like these it is that survivors are broken._

_So you shrug, “I heard some of the kids talking about it.”_

_He nods, lowering his gaze to the board in his hands. After reading in silence for a few seconds, he motions for you to sit on a scary looking chair with too much resemblance to one that has haunted your memories of nightmares not your own for too long now._

_“What is that?” You ask, and the man tsks his tongue, clearly running out of patience._

_“I have to get you healthy. Sit, and I will give you some fluids.”_

_“Why should I?” You retort, but he only sighs in response._

_“You’ll find pain soon, girl. Make it easier for yourself and don’t make it start now.”_

“Now?” You ask, stupidly. The woman sneers your way, the creases around her eyes deepening with the movement.

“I’m sorry. Do you have a date you don’t want to miss?”

Ignoring her, and, frankly, ignoring your own stupid question; you walk on unusually shaky legs to the table.

“Karpov will not be notified of the change.”

“Of course not.”

“The traces of the new rhythm will be destroyed, Doc,” She hesitates for a moment, clearly not expecting that demand, and a part of you rests assured that as far as you know only Karpov is aware and in power of controlling people, Cataclysm’s survivors, through their heartbeats. So, it is easier for you to add the forced lightheartedness in your tone, “And you better bring me back.”

“Don’t fret, girl. I’m not stupid enough to try to kill you. Like I said, I read your file.”

The brace-like clasp is set around your left arm, and the woman readies both the poison and the mix of adrenaline and epinephrine to bring back to life the heart the poison is set to stop.

You watch avidly the process, the way she reaches to settle a clasp around your chest. You hold her wrist tightly in your hand, and her eyes meet yours.

“You will convulse when the heart stops. I can’t have you moving.” She explains, forcing you to let go of her and fastening the clasp around your chest. You take a few deep breaths, trying to keep yourself from panicking when she reaches for your other arm, strapping you to the table and leaving you unable to move.

The Doctor asks if you are ready, an unlikely and surprising gentleness in her tone as she settles near you, ready to start the process.

“I’m ready.” You whisper, more to yourself than her. Panic claws is way through you, whispering in your ear about how she cannot be trusted, about how there’s so many things that could be wrong, about how maybe your heartbeat will stay the same after what your sister did fifty or so years ago.

But you try ignoring it.

“Okay, stopping your heart in three…”

You close your eyes and think of your sister, easy smile and a mischievous glint in her eye as she links her arm with yours, a slight bump of her hip to yours as you walk together.

“Two…”

You clench your hands into fists and think of Bucky, gentle heart and this awed and loving depth to his gaze as his arms wrap around you, his warmth spreading to you and his heart seeming to beat in sync with yours when you press your chest against his as you lean up to share a kiss.

“One.”

You feel the initial shock, the shattering feeling of your body, your whole being, shriveling up to nothing as something else takes control over it, and your mouth falls open in a scream that never leaves your lips, your skin breaks as the animal part of you tries to fight the bonds, tries to be set free to fight an even battle against the infinite and invisible curse of death.

You bite past the pain, and let yourself think of the futures you let yourselves wonder, dream, picture, in these last few months since coming back to your sister and, unknowingly, to your soulmate.

_Somewhere in the States, Natalia finds a group of peace fighters and convinces you to join them on their van as they travel the country._

_You cannot help but notice the way your sister’s gaze lingers on the eldest couple, Elsa and Jeremy, around their mid thirties and seven months along their first pregnancy. Natalia’s green eyes seem to be glued to the embraced couple, her lips curved in an unconscious, sad, smile as she watches Elsa run her hands over her swollen stomach._

_“Think you’ll ever have that, Solnyshka?” Your sister whispers, resting her head on your shoulder as she continues to watch the scene unfold._

_“Maybe,” You concede, even though you cannot imagine bringing a child to this world of chaos and death, of running and jumping at shadows. But, the image is there, the golden future with the white picket fence teases you form the distance. “What about you, Nat?”_

_Her smile turns bitter, and she swallows tightly before answering, “I can’t.”_

_“You can still be a mother, Natalia. They didn’t take that from you.”_

_“I’m not talking about the…the sterilization. I am not…soft, I wouldn’t-…I can’t have this.” She mutters, her silver tongue tangled in the pain and anger of a past life never hers._

_You reach for her hand, squeezing softly before resting your head over her own where it still lays on your shoulder._

_“Well, you better be there for the little me’s running around. They are going to need their Auntie Nat to spoil them rotten.”_

_She laughs, a broken but hopeful sound leaving her smiling lips. Her eyes remain in the couple, though. There’s a few moments of silence, where you reach up to not-so-subtly comb through the messy red bangs in her forehead._

_“If you name the first girl after me.”_

_“Which of the hundreds of names,_ sestra _?” You tease back, chuckling when she pinches your arm lightly in retaliation._

A pained sound leaves your throat, leaving behind a trail of fire and gravel. But you clench your hands into fists and focus on anything that isn’t the way your lungs aren’t filling with air anymore.

_“Remember the first night you spent at the compound?” Bucky whispers, eyes closed even though his fingers trail over the bare skin of your arms and back as if trying to memorize the pattern, as if trying to commit your body to memory._

_“The time I yelled at you, ran off, and then had a ‘stern Steve’ glare thrown at me?”_

_He laughs lightly, a silver of his bright eyes peeking through his hooded lids._

_“You never told me about that.”_

_“About how your bestfriend is a big momma bear when it comes to you?” You tease with a smile, “Honey, I think you should be aware of that already._

_A breath, and then, as the hand that is not under your head traces over his profile; you add,_

_“’Sides, I deserved it.”_

_“You had every right to react how you did. Hell, I’m still amazed you don’t hate my guts, doll.”_

_There’s a rue smile on your lips when you answer,_

_“I don’t think I ever did, honestly. I hated not remembering, I hated that…that I couldn’t recognize my past self because…” You fail to put your thoughts into words, so you sigh and try explaining it from the beginning, “The Ghost Hydra’s inner circle boasted about controlling, the one I learned and read about, he…he couldn’t be my soulmate,” There’s a very subtle wince Bucky makes at your words, only noticeable because of how close you are to him. You reach to turn his gaze back to yours before the doubt and guilt can even try to settle on his eyes; gentle fingers on his cheek as your eyes ask him to listen to you. “I couldn’t bear a world, a version of myself, where I didn’t give everything to keep you from that pain, a version of me that failed to keep the people I love safe._

_You try to keep the pain out of your voice, the creeping feeling of having failed him from taking over your heart and your voice.  
_

_“I couldn’t-…I think refusing the idea that we were soulmates helped me deal with the idea that I wasn’t…enough.”_

_Bucky intervenes quickly at your words, sitting up slightly and frowning your way._

_“Not enough?” He repeats. Shaking his head, he looks into your eyes as he says, “Angel, you kept me…as sane as I could be. You gave me hope, babygirl. Way before I even met you.” The earnestness in his tone, the way his grey-blue eyes search yours and try to make you understand put a small, teary smile on your face._

_But you still shake your head as you sit up too to be able to face him. Your eyes follow your fingers as they trace the scars over his shoulder, right where skin meets metal, where the boy that fell from the train met Hydra’s Ghost._

_“I should have done more.” You insist softly._

_“Y/N, listen to me,” He whispers, warm flesh and the somehow soft metal framing your face as he takes it in his hands. “I am not lying when I say you kept me alive, doll. You did all you could, and the fact that I can see you right in front of me and hold you right now is more than I ever thought I would have, even before Hydra,” He smiles softly as he rests his forehead on yours, his eyes falling closed, “You are my soulmate, Y/N.”_

_There’s a softness in his tone when he says it, like a secret between you two, like a treasure to be kept. A smile forms on your lips as you close your eyes as well._

_“Wish I could have been there, though.”_

_“You were,” He insists, “Knowing that I had you, somewhere, somehow? It gave me peace, even when I was…trapped in there. Hearing you, feeling you on the other side of the bond when I thought I was going to give up gave me a reason to stay,” He states simple, not a shade of uncertainty in his voice, making your throat close and a pitiful sniffle break the silence between his words. “And…if having now you means having to survive all that? I’d take the deal a thousand times.”_

You open your eyes, and you hear it, beating wildly on the machines, as if singing its own anthem of victory.

Your heartbeat. The new name it spells.

_-… ..- -.-. -.- -.– / -… .- .-. -….._

_Bucky Barnes._

____

You bide your time, you let your body rest and heal from its second dance with death. You plan, with observing eyes and burning rage building under your skin.

On the morning Karpov sends his best men after Rumlow, you move.

Stationed in Siberia ever since your failed attempt at staging your own rescue in the mining facility, you know every nook and cranny of this god-forsaken place.

Which works in your favor when you corner Karpov in his office, a gun in your hand and once again the barrel of it pressing against his forehead.

Only this time, you don’t hesitate.

You don’t shoot, he doesn’t deserve the embrace of death yet, but you don’t hesitate either.

_The last of his guards falls to the ground with a sickening sound, but you don’t give yourself time to ponder on it, already reloading the handgun and strapping it back to your thigh. Taking the semi-automatic from your back and aiming carefully as you stroll into the room, you try calming your erratically beating heart._

_“Karpov!” Your voice echoes loudly in the room. “You better come out, you son of a bitch.”_

_No answer._

_Reaching a simple desk, you let the rifle rest in your bicep, holding it with one hand as the other takes one of the files from his desk._

Y/N Romanova _._

_You let it fall with an angry sigh, eyes lifting to scan over the room._

_“Karpov?” You try again, and at the deafening silence of your own voice echoing back at you, you close your eyes for a second. Taking a deep breath, you whisper, ignoring how your voice trembles at the name you haven’t dared pronounce in so long, “James?”_

_The answer is an arm firmly wrapping around your neck, trying to pull you back._

_The Colonel’s hot breath traces your skin, making bile rise in your throat._

_“I’m afraid he is unavailable at the moment, girl.”_

_The rifle in your hand is quickly discarded as you reach for the knife strapped to your thigh. Slicing swiftly over the man’s arm and ribs, you put distance between you, turning around and looking for the first time in your life into the eyes of the monster that gives a face to the horror that is Hydra for you._

_There’s an edge in the Colonel’s anger, a madness lurking behind his gaze. It is enough to freeze you on the spot, sealing your voice behind tightly closed lips._

_“You are the girl that took my family from me.” He states, disbelief clouding his words._

_“You are the man that took everything from me!” You yell back, voice catching in anger and years old pain. The man smiles your way in response, lines around his eyes deepening, forcing you to suppress a shiver._

_“Are you here to take revenge, little one?”_

_“I’m here to get James out.”_

_“You are not,” Karpov answers, smile still in place and a small shrug accompanying his words. Taken aback, you open your mouth to ask what he means, when the older man shakes his head your way, as if proving to himself -or you- how naive, how unknowing, you are. “You will fail.”_

_“I will not.”_

_“Trust me, I know you will. My family, the men and women you found on your way here; they should be dead, or worse,” He explains, walking slowly towards you even as you take out your handgun and point it at his head. “You are not fierce enough.”_

_A snarl twists your lips upwards as you stalk towards him, anger boiling under your skin and making your hands tremble as you press the end of the barrel on the man’s forehead._

_“Where is he!?”_

_The smile turns predatory, haunting the part of you that still hopes for a way for this to work out, “Nowhere to be found.”_

_“I will kill you, I swear I’ll-” You start, despite the way your hand trembles, despite the way the Colonel looks at you like he has already won. Tears threaten to fall down your cheeks, but you clench your jaw and take the safety off._

_Still, the words die in your throat, the threat falls flat as it shows you are nothing but a girl, scared and pushed to the limit. The tears fall and you are nothing but a failed experiment, a broken doll that cursed the man with her name on his heart, because she would never be as strong as he needed her to be, because she would never be enough to push back the demons reaching for his soul._

_“You should have killed them. You should kill me. But you won’t.”_

_Twin streaks of tears stain your face, eyes shining but voice sure and rageful as you spit back, “I won’t become a monster to win!”_

_“You need to be one just to be able to fight back against Hydra, girl.”_

But you proved him wrong. Now your soul is still yours and so is justice.

The alarm ringing through the facility shakes you out of your memories, bringing your focus back to the escape, however easy it may be now that the head of the snake if gone.

Not cut, only two more would grow back. You made sure to burn it off this time. Let the ghosts try to make venom out of ashes. They will only fail.

You can almost feel the sting of Siberia’s cold on your skin as you sprint towards the exit. Before you actually leave though, your eyes fall to the surveillance cameras, and you see four of Karpov’s elite guards run into the room you are running through.

A curse leaves your lips in Russian, quiet as your steps as you press your back to the nearest wall, and ready your knives.

You haven’t established a link strong enough to the new beat of your heart to be able to use your powers to their fullest extent. Or trust them, for that matter. If there’s anything Karpov taught you in these few months, is that you are much more than your powers, than what they tried to make out of you.

So, you close your eyes, take a deep breath, and move in as they are about to turn the corner.

_Karpov is down. So is Kseniya. All by my hand. I can do this._

You manage to land a few shallow cuts in the first man’s torso and arm before another guard grabs you from behind, forcing you into a headlock and cutting off your air.

_“I don’t see how I will need this experience. Soulmate trackers usually don’t go around handing CV’s, Buck.” You grumble from the floor, covering your face with your arm as you feel the soreness of training spread through your body._

_“Call it…covering the bases, preparing for the worst.” He says, prompting you to lift yourself up; and you do so, but not without complaining wordlessly but loudly as you do._

_“I would rather call you paranoid, but I’m gonna go with it,” Smiling his way to soften the blow, you ready your stance again. Before Bucky moves to attack you, you call out, “And I can hear you, Steven.”_

_A soft chuckle is all the response you get from the blond supersoldier, and your smile is quickly wiped off as you focus back on the training exercise._

_You are able to counter Bucky’s attacks, and even though you know he is holding back the strength of his prosthetic you avoid and dodge almost every hit. Still, you are painfully aware how pushed you are, constantly in defense and unable to land any hit._

_With an angry growl, you move for a punch right after blocking a hit with your forearm. Bucky grabs your hand, however, fast reflexes stopping your hit._

_“Too slow, doll.” He teases, smirk on his face._

_“Against a supersoldier? Well, duh.”_

_“Be smarter, then.”_

_Before you can answer, you feel Steve’s forearm around your throat, Bucky still holding your hand and rendering you immobile._

_Well, almost._

_Using Steve’s grip as a lever, you pull yourself up, landing your bare feet on Bucky’s chest and pushing him back, turning your smaller body over Steve’s head and shoulders, breaking free of his grasp._

_“Shit,” You gasp, landing on shaky legs on the floor. A stunned Steve gives you an arm to stand straighter, and you smile proudly at the soldiers, “Smarter it is, then.”_

_“I’m impressed.” Steve smiles your way, and you shake your head in response._

_“You shouldn’t be. I pissed of Hydra, more times than I remember; I had to be able to beat their best._

_You shrug, leaning back into Bucky’s chest when he wraps his arm around you gently, pressing a kiss against your hair with a sigh._

_You have the not so sneaking suspicion that there was more than a way to spend time behind Bucky’s intentions to train you to fight against a supersoldier, but you choose to ignore them for the time being, aware only time will make the -however unstable- peace he has found something he trusts to remain._

_Pressing a kiss to Bucky’s jaw, you add, “’Sides, it doesn’t hurt that you taught my totally-not-overprotective sister how to beat you.”_

You shake off the guard, falling behind him and destabilizing him after using is own strength against him. You try not dwelling on how easy it is when you plunge your knives deep into his chest from your place at his back.

The man falls quickly to the ground, and for a second too long the remaining soldiers look at you in something akin to fear.

“Aim to kill.” The leader growls, before two assault rifles are pointed your way, and he launches himself your way.

You make quick work of him, though, as his trigger-happy subordinates try shooting at you the moment you get the upper hand, allowing you to move his frame to cover you and have his men kill him.

 You use his handgun to take the other two down, following his order and aiming to kill. Taking a moment to breathe,  you take cover behind a pillar and count your bullets.

But there’s a new, coordinated sets of steps approaching the room again. Trying to keep them from hearing you, you hold your breath and stay still, and seconds tick by in silence as you wait for them to move on.

But you hear their breathing change, the rustling of combat clothing as they signal to one another. They heard you.

You move in ahead despite the fear of being overpowered after all that has happened, knives aiming for the chest and neck, but your right arm is forced back, and the clicking of a gun’s safety makes your heart beat painfully fast in your chest.

Refusing to admit defeat so close to…to whatever is expecting you out in the world; you let go of the knife in your right hand, the magnets pulling it to the one on your left and making a double-bladed dagger. Turning your wrist and, although painfully, freeing yourself from their grasp; you grab a hold of the metal wrist and force them forward, their throat at the end of your knife.

The action stops as soon as the blade teases the thin skin of their neck, the one holding the gun…

Is that metal you feel under your fingers?

Your gaze finds for the first time the face of the attacker. For a few seconds, a few empty and achingly hopeful seconds, you cannot find it in yourself to react.

Broken grey eyes search yours, and it is only then you realize your knife is still at Bucky’s throat, your gaze dead and your stance that of a soldier.

Your name is a breath on his lips, the same name that branded you both, that cursed you both. But it has never sounded so much like salvation.

“Bucky.” A smile trembles in your lips as you look at him, and before you can think twice about it, the knife falls from your hand, the now free hand reaching up to his cheek.

Buck flinches away from your touch, eyes now frantic, scared, as they take you in. You repeat his name, a question now, a disbelieving plea.

Someone speaks up, someone that sounds like Steve, and you turn your eyes to the blond supersoldier when he intercepts you. The way he too stares at you like he has seen a ghost makes realization set on your stomach with the weight of a stone.

_I stopped my own heart. Just like the first time._

Bucky’s words about how it felt to lose you the first time, whispered in the darkness that surrounded you in that peaceful cabin in Brasov, in what seems like a lifetime ago are brought forth in your mind, the guilt and pain mixing within you and forcing tears to rise in your eyes.

“I had to do it.” You whimper, voice cracking in the middle of the sentence as your eyes take in the man you love. The man that faced Hydra and didn’t back down, stares back at you with a fear unlike any other shining in his grey eyes; the hopeful soldier you said goodbye to in Vienna holds a new darkness to him.

The most resilient man you have ever met, the one with the quiet strength, with the stubborn push for survival…he looks completely and utterly _broken._

Your focus is forced away from him, though, when your sister breaks the spell of disbelief that settled over the three soldiers when they saw you on your feet in front of them.

“Solnyshka.” Natalia breathes right by you, before you are wrapped up in her arms, her characteristic scent of the waxy smell of lipstick and coppery smell of gunpowder reaching your senses and prompting your whole body to relax, as if some primitive part of you is now safe because your big sister, your protector, your right hand, is with you again.

Her slender frame trembles in your arms, prompting tears to trail down your cheeks as your eyes fall closed.

You know what to do, how to comfort her. You know exactly how she feels, because you went through the same thing almost fifty years ago, and the memory of that pain still keeps you up at night. The delight, the gratefulness that your sister was alive and in front of you, the crushing pain of thinking of what you could have done to have her in your arms sooner, to save her from the pain.

So you just hug her tighter, run a hand through her short hair, and whisper the nonsense you wanted to hear when you got her back form her presumed death, because you remember with painful clarity how the raspy cadence of her voice managed to make it real, managed to make it permanent.

“Hey, I’m here, it’s-…it’s over, Nat,” You soothe, swallowing past the knot in your throat. “I’m here, I’m okay.

You look over her shoulder at your soulmate, taking in the way his eyes show a heartbreaking mix of anguish and awe. So not unlike the same way he looked at you when you met in Washington, disbelief tainting the first words the Ghost had uttered, resilient hope shaping the letters of your name as it left his lips.

You do not know who you are talking to when you add in a whisper,

“It’s finally over. We can go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I kinda can’t believe this story is almost over. This doesn’t feel like the end at all though, idk why. But I am…happy? Yeah, I am, I want to take on a few more projects that I have planned out, write Royals, start doing more oneshots and stuff. And I loved writing this so much and I thank you all so much for your support and for reading my story!  
> I hope you liked this chapter, please come talk to me! Love ya!
> 
> Also, the second chapter of Bucky’s version of events takes place almost directly after the end of this one, so it kinda works as an epilogue. But, if you guys want, I think I can work out an epilogue, there’s a few scenes that never made the final cut too, so…just lemme know, I’m at your disposal here hehe


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